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EDITION 



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THAYEB & ELDRIDGE, 

114 AND 116 "Washington Stkeet 

1860. 



WIDE-AWAKE EDITION 






LIFE AND PUBLIC SEEYICES 



OF ILLINOIS, 



\im. IIANNIHAL HAILSM, 



OF MAIN 




BOSTON: 
THAYEB & ELDRIDGE, 

114 AND 116 Washington Street 

1860. 






Entered according lo Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

T HATER & Eld RIDGE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachnsette. 



Ceo. C. IUsd ft Atket, PanriBBs, 3 Cobkhiix, Hottos. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Introductory — Abraham Lincoln - - - - - - 7 

CHAPTER I. 

Ancestors — Birth — Early Surroundings — Removal to Indiana — Edu- 
cation — Occupation — Settled in Illinois — Black Hawk War — Hu- 
morous Speech — Surveying — Letter of a Western Man - - 13 

CHAPTER II. 

Entrance into Public Life — Election to State Legislature — Presi- 
dential Elector — Election to Congress — Action there — Canvass of 
1848, etc. -..--23 

CHAPTER III. 

Private Life — 1854 — The Nebraska Bill Agitation in Illinois — Posi- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln — Speech at Peoria — Anti-Nebraska Convention 
Campaign — of 1856 28 

CHAPTER IV. 

Eepublican Convention, 1858 — Nomination as Senator at Springfield — 
Speech of Acceptance — Challenge to Douglas — Correspondence 85 

CHAPTER V. 

The Senatorial Debate — Position of the Candidates — The Second De- 
bate at Freeport— Arguments of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas - 48 



TABLE OP COXTENTS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Re-election of Mr. Douglas- Fraudulent Districting- Ohio Can- 
vass— Speeches by ]\Ir. Lincoln, etc. -.____ 

CHAPTEE VII. 

Eepublican Convention - Preparations at Chicago - The Wigwam- 
Enthusiasm _ Organization - Speech of the President - Nomina- 
'* tions-Ballotings -Choice of Lincoln -Vice-President -Hamlin, 
etc. - - - _ _ 



91 



Introductory— Hannibal Hamhn 



106 



CHAPTEE I. 

Date of Birth -Profession -Political Faith - Entrance to Public 
Life — Election to State Legislature, etc. ----- io7 

CHAPTEE II. 

Return Home -State Legislature Election to the United States Sen- 
ate -Admission of Oregon - Compromise of 1850 - Mr. Hamlin's 
Votes-The Nebraska Bill- Abandonment of the Democratic Party- 
Election as Governor — Return to the Senate, etc. - - - 109 

CHAPTEE III. 

United States Senate -The Lecompton Contest-Mr. Hamlin's Posi- 
tion-" Mudsills"— Answer to Senator Hammond, of S. C. -The 
Laborers of the North - --..... 

CHAPTEE IV. 

Nomination as Vice-President - Mr. Hamlin's Experience fits him for 
the position-Acceptance of Nomination-Public Serenade at WasU 
ington — Disturbance, etc. ,^. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



APPENDIX. 

Speeches of Hon. Abraham Lincoln, of Illinios - - - 129 
Squatter Sovereignty and its Fallacies — Chicago Speech, July 

10, 1858 ._.-_. 131 

Present Position of the Slavery Question — Springfield Speech, July 

17, 1858 --...154 

Guveramental Control of the Territories vs. Squatter Sovereignty — 

Columbus (Ohio) Speech, September, 1859 - - - , - - 177 
Ohio and Kentucky, or the Two Systems — Speech at Cincinnati - 210 
National Politics and the Republican Party — Speech at New York, 

February 28, 1860 241 

The Elinois Senatorial Canvass — Extracts from Mi\ Lincoln's 

Speeches at Galesburg, Alton, etc. ---.-- 2S4 
MR. LINCOLN IN CONGRESS — Mexican War — Resolution of 

Inquiry - ----298 

Soldier's Bounty ----- 300 

The Public Lands ..-- 301 

Slavery in the District of Columbia ------ 304 

Eights of Naturalized Citizens - _----. 307 

Lincoln Vote in 1858 .-- 308 

Speech of Hon. Hannibal Hamlin— Democracy - - - - 311 
Letters of Acceptance ----- __- 319 



INTRODUCTOIIT. 



The REPrBMCAN Party, by its National Nominating Con- 
vention, at Chicago, on Friday, May 18, placed before the Ameri- 
can people these two, Abuaham Lincoln, of Illinois, and 
Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, the latter one of the United 
States Senators from that State, as its candidates for President 
and Vice-President of this Republic. The nominations have 
additional interest at this particular period. Besides the fact 
that they are thus made the standard-bearers of the most vigorous 
political organization in the nation, there is also to be taken into 
account the manifold dissensions of their adversaries, which would 
seem to point the way to a certain Republican victory at the elec- 
tion in November next. 

Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, is a genuine scion of the "West- 
land," and may therefore fairly be regarded as a representative 
man. Born on the " dark and bloody ground '' of Kentucky, he 
was " raised " in Illinois, being brought to that then Territory at a 
period when the foot of the white man had barely begun to tread 
its magnificent prairies. 

With very limited opportunities of receiving an education, 
but much of that genial humor and quick sense of observation and 
appreciation, which is especially characteristic of our Western 
Pioneers, Abraham Lincoln stands to-day not only a represen- 
tative of the early Western stock, the hunter, fiirmer, and pioneer, 
but an admirable example of what energy and ability can do for a 
man honestly using them in honorable pursuits. 

Not only in character but in person, is Abraham Lincoln a 
type of the West. Tall and loose-jointed, with large bones, the 
person of the future Iloosier President will attract attention every- 
where. 



8 INTRODUCTORY 

In personal appearance, Mr. Lincoln, or, as he is more familiarly 
termed among those who know him best, " Honest Abe," is lon<r, 
lean, and wiry. In motion, he has a good deal of the elasticity 
and awkwardness which indicate the rough training of his early 
life, and his conversation savors strong!}' of Western idioms and 
pronunciation. His height is six feet three inches. Ilis complexion 
is about that of an octoroon ; his face, without being by any 
means beautiful, is genial looking, and good-humor seems to lurk in 
every corner of its innumerable angles. He has dark hair, tinged 
with gray ; a good forehead ; small eyes ; a long, penetrating nose, 
with nostrils such as Napoleon always liked to find in his best 
generals, because they indicated a long head and clear thoughts ; 
and a mouth which, aside from being of magnificent proportions, 
is probably his most expressive feature. 

As a speaker, he is ready, precise, and fluent. His manner 
before a popular assembly is as he pleases to make it, being either 
superlatively ludicrous, or very impressive. He employs but little 
gesticulation, but, when he desires to make a point, produces a 
shrug of his shoulders, an elevation of his eyebrows, a depression of 
his mouth, and a general distortion of countenance, so comically 
awkward that it never fails to " bring down the house." His 
enunciation is slow and emphatic, and his voice, though sharp and 
powerful, at times has a frequent tendency to dwindle into a shrill 
and unpleasant sound : but, as before stated, the peculiar character- 
istic of his manner is the remarkable mobility of his features, the 
frequent contortions of which excite a merriment his words could 
not produce. 

The Boston Transcript published the following in its issue of 
October 13, 1858. It describes Mr. Lincoln's appearance in the 
debate with Mr. Douglas, at Galesburg, Illinois, October 7, of the 
same year. The letter was written by the president of a college in 
that State, — a gentleman well known in New England, and 
particularly esteemed in Boston. After stating the reception of 
the rival champions of the two parties, this correspondent con- 
tinued : — 

" The men are entirely dissimilar. Mr. Douglas is a thick-set, 
finely-built, courageous man, and has an air of self-confidence that 
docs not a little to inspire his supporters with hope. Mr. Lincoln 
is a tall, lank man, awkward, apparently diffident, and, when not 
speaking, has neither firmness in his countenance, nor fire in his 
eye. 



AND PERSONAL. 9 

" Mr. Lincoln lias a rich, silvery voice, enunciates witL great 
distinctness, and has a fine command of language. He coninienccd 
by a review of the points Mr. Douglas had made. In this he 
showed great tact, and his retorts, though gentlemanly, -were sharp, 
and reached to the core of the subject in dispute. While he gave 
but little time to the work of review, we did not feel that anything 
was omitted which deserved attention. 

" He then proceeded to defend the Republican party. Here he 
charged Mr. Douglas with doing nothing for freedom ; with disre- 
garding the rights and interests of the colored man ; and, for about 
forty minutes, he spoke with a power that we have seldom heard 
equalled. There was a grandeur in his thoughts, a comprehensive- 
ness in his arguments, and a binding force in his conclusions, which 
were perfectly Irresistible. The vast throng were silent as death ; 
every eye was fixed upon the speaker, and all gave him serious 
attention. He was the tall man eloquent ; his countenance glowed 
with animation, and his eye glistened with an intelligence that 
made It lustrous. He was no longer awkward and ungainly, but 
graceful, bold, commanding." 

" Honest old Abe," as Mr. Lincoln is commonly called by the 
great masses of the people of the " Prairie State," is decidedly a 
man to win upon the popular heart by the sturdy manliness of his 
character, and the simple integrity and straight forward logic of 
his political opinions. The genuine though not reverential Instincts 
of the Western people have fixed upon the Republican candi- 
date an expressive, if not euphonious title, which Is In decided con- 
trast with the reputation an " old public functionary " will carry 
with him into a dishonored retirement. In one respect the name 
is a misnomer, as " Honest Abe " is by no means " old ; " he being 
fifty-one years of age, and in the bloom of full and vigorous 
manhood. 

Mr. Lincoln is by profession a lawyer, in which pursuit he has 
won a position and reputation at the Illinois bar second to none. 
His mind is eminently legal ; as an advocate, he is clear, cogent, 
and logical ; understands how to control a jury, and always pre- 
sents himself well fortified in the legal points of any case he may 
undertake. 

As a politician, he has always acted with the moderate Whigs of 
the Henry Clay school, and since the former parties of the country 
committed themselves fully to the interests of the Slave Propa- 



10 INTRODUCTORY 

pandn, he has been found working with the party of free labor. 
Tliough decidedly opposed to slaver}', as the speeches inserted in 
these pages show, Mr. Lincoln would not be classed as a radical 
Republican. His opposition to the " peculiar institution " seems 
rather to be based upon the politico-economical view of the subject 
than upon the moral grounds, though he by no means shirks that 
most important element of the question. The charge of 'desiring 
" negro equality," which would have been trumpeted against ^Ir. 
Seward, cannot be charged on Mr. Lincoln. He has distinctly 
stated his opposition to the exercise of suffrage, &c., by the Anglo- 
Africans of this continent. In this respect, he represents the 
average sentiment of the people among whom he lives. 

Mr. Lincoln is one of the most effective of " stump speakers." 
He understands well how to move the hearts of a people more 
powerfully affected and controlled by the fiery eye, the working 
features, the speaking tongue, and the many magnetic elements 
which go to make up the orator, than possibly any other people 
on the face of the earth. " Honest old Abe " has the qualities of 
earnestness, enthusiasm, evident siucerity, large knowledge of men, 
quick perception of the humorous, and a ready application of his 
faculties io the surrounding circumstances. All these make him a 
powerful and popular speaker of the Western school. 

Of the people, — sprung from their loins, proud of his origin, 
having carved out for himself his own fortune, — the whilom Hat- 
boatman, farmer, clerk, storekeeper, captain of volunteers, serving 
gallantly in the Black Hawk "War of 18.32 ; the rising lawyer, active 
politician, and prominent leader of his party for many years, — the 
name, history, and character of Abraham Lincoln has in it many 
of the qualities that will stir the enthusiasm, and bring out the 
hardy masses of freemen, throughout the whole of the Northern 
and border States. 

The Chicago Press and Tribune gives the following interesting 
particulai-s relative to the personnel of Mr. Lincoln. This journal 
being the leading Republican paper of the Northwest, and of 
Illinois in particular, its statements are Avorthy of notice, as coming 
from those speaking as with authority. The description of his 
person, and account of his habits, are especially interesting. 

" Mr. Lincoln stands six feet four inches high in his stockings. 
His frame is not muscular, but gaunt and wirj ; his arms are long, 
but not unreasonably so for a person of his height; his lower limbs 



AND PERSONAL. 11 

are not disproportioned to his body. In walking, his gait, though 
firm, is never brisk. He steps slowly and deliberately, almost 
always with his head inclined forward, and his hands clasped 
behind his back. In matters of dress, he is by no means precise. 
Always clean, he is never fashionable ; he is careless, but not 
slovenly. In manner, he is remarkably cordial, and, at the same 
time, simple. His politeness is always sincere, but never elaborate 
and oppressive. A warm shake of the hand, and a warmer smile 
of recognition, are his methods of greeting his friends. At rest, his 
features, though those of a man of mark, are not such as belong to 
a handsome man ; but when his fine dark-gray eyes are lighted up 
by any emotion, and his features begin their play, he would be 
chosen from among a crowd as one who had in him not only the 
kindly sentiments which women love, but the heavier metal of 
which full-grown men and presidents are made. His hair is black, 
and, though thin, is wiry. His head sits well on his shoulders, but, 
beyond that, it defies description. It nearer resembles that of 
Clay than Webster ; but it is unlike either. It is very large, and, 
phrenologically, well proportioned, betokening power in all its 
developments. A slightly Roman nose, a wide-cut mouth, and a 
dark complexion, with the appearance of having been weather- 
beaten, complete the description. 

" In his personal habits, Mr. Lincoln is as simple as a child. He 
loves a good dinner, and eats with the appetite which goes with a 
great brain ; but his food is plain and nutritious. He never drinks 
intoxicating liquors of any sort, not even a glass of wine. He is 
not addicted to tobacco in any of its shapes. He never was accused 
of a licentious act in all his life. He never uses profane language. 
He never gambles ; we doubt if he ever indulges in any games of 
chance. He is particularly cautious about incurring pecuniary 
obligations for any purpose whatever ; and, in debt, he is never 
content until the score is discharged. We presume he ows no man 
a dollar. He never speculates. The rage for the sudden acquisi- 
tion of wealth never took hold of him. His gains from his profes- 
sion have been moderate, but sufficient for his purposes. While 
others have dreamed of gold, he has been in pursuit of knowledge. 
In all his dealings, he has the reputation of being generous but 
exact, and, above all, religiously honest. He would be a bold man 
who would say that Abraham Lincoln ever wronged any one out of 
a cent, or ever spent a dollar that he had not honestly earned. 



12 INTRODUCTORY AND PERSONAL. 

His struggles in early life have made him careful of money, but his 
generosity with his own is proverbial. He is a regular attendant 
ujion religious worship, and, though not a communicant, is a pew- 
holder and liberal supporter of the Presbyterian Church in Spring- 
field, to which Mrs. Lincoln belongs. He is a scrupulous teller of* 
the truth, — too exact in his notions to suit the atmosphere of 
Washington as it now is. His enemies may say that he tells Black 
Republican lies ; but no man ever charged that, in a professional 
capacity, or as a citizen dealing with his neighbors, he would 
depart irom the scriptural command. At home, he lives like a 
gentleman of modest means and simple tastes. A good-sized house 
of wood, simply but tastefully furnished, surrounded by trees and 
flowers, is his own, and there he lives, at peace with himself, the 
idol of his family, and, for his honesty, ability, and patriotism, the 
admiration of his countrymen. 

" If Mr. Lincoln is elected President, he will carry but little that 
is ornamental to the White House. The country must accept his 
sincerity, his ability, and his honesty in the mould in which they 
are cast. He will not be able to make as polite a bow as Frank 
Pierce, but he will not commence, anew the agitation of the slavery 
question by recommending to Congress any Kansas-Xebraska bills. 
He may not preside at the Presidential dinners with the ease and 
grace which distinguish the " venerable public functionary," Mr. 
Buchanan ; but ho will not create the necessity for a Covode Com- 
mittee, and the disgraceful revelations of Cornelius Wendell. He 
will take to the Presidential chair just the qualities which the 
country now demands to save it from impending destruction, — 
ability that no man can question, firmness that nothing can over- 
bear, honesty that never has been impeached, and patriotism that 
never despairs." 



LIFE AND PUBLIC SERTICES 

OF 

HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



CHAPTER I. 

Ancestors — Birth — Early Surroundings — Kemoval to Indiana — Education 
— Occupation — Settled in Illinois — Black Hawk War, etc. 

The ancestors of Abraham Lincoln were of the good old 
stock by -whom the State of Pennsylvania was founded. Mem- 
bers of the Society of Friends, they lived in Berks County, 
Pennsylvania, and emigrated from thence to Rockingham 
County, Virginia. In 1781-2, the paternal grandfather of 
Mr. Lincoln removed to Kentucky, where a year or two later 
he was killed by the Indians. Descendants from the same 
stock still live in the eastern part of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Lincoln was born February 12, 1809, in Harden Coun- 
ty, Kentucky. He is consequently now in the fifty-first year 
of his life. The early impressions of his childhood were formed 
amid the wilderness scenes of Kentucky, and among the rude, 
yet Lirge-hearted men who were the pioneers of those days. 

In 181G, when the subject of this memoir was about seven 
years of age, his parents removed with him to Spencer County, 
in the Territory of Indiana. Those of the present generation 
have but little idea of the character and surroundings of the 
Western people at that early period. The vast continental area, 
now covered with populous States, teeming with civilization 
and its results, blooming with cultivation, and blossoming 
beneath the busy brain and toiling hand of American industry, 
was then but a wide expanse of unknown prairie, whose far-oflf 



14 LIFE AND PUBLIC SER'TICES 

western horizon was supposed to dip its blue circle beyond the 
impassable American desert ; long the bugbear of travellers, 
and now the exploded chimera of ignorant geographers. At 
this early period, the refining, educating influences of modern 
society were unknown. The preachers, what few there were, 
were mostly like the congregation, — uncultured backwoods- 
men, whose rude eloquence was yet well fitted to uplift the 
mind of their uneducated hearers. Schools were even less fre- 
quent than the opportunities for religious instruction. 

It was among such influences as these that our young pioneer 
grew up to carve out for himself a distinguished manhood. Mr. 
Lincoln barely received the rudimentary elements of a common 
English education. Probably six months will cover the whole 
period spent by him within the rude log walls of the schoolhouse 
of the paternal settlement. Endowed with quick faculties, 
ambition, and energy, the youth of Mr. Lincoln was not lost in 
idleness, or wasted in vain pursuits. 

He remained in Indiana until 1830, working on the home 
farm, or engaged in other arduous occupations. During the 
period of youth and early manhood, he labored industriously, 
losing no opportunity of cultivating his mind, whether working 
on the farm, or drifting on the fiat-boat down the Mississippi 
River. 

In 1830, at the age of twenty-one, Mr. Lincoln removed to 
Macon County, Illinois. Here he remained for about a year, 
engaged in agricultural pursuits. At this period, he hired 
himself out to the neighboring farmers, and it is told of him that 
he mauled and split a large quantity of rails. During the sitting 
of the Republican Convention, much amusement was excited by 
the introduction of a banner supported by two worm-eaten rails, 
and inscribed as part of a lot of 3,000 made by Abraham Lin- 
coln, in 1830, for a farmer in Macon County. 

Mr. Lincoln removed to New Salem, then in Sagamore, now 
Chenard County, where he remained about one year. He was 
principally employed as a clerk in a store. Mr. Lincoln, in the 
first of his celebrated debates with J\id",e Douirlas, held at 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 15 

Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, alluded to this period of 
his life, in reply to this, Judge Douglas epitomized a history of 
Mr. Lincoln. 

"In the remarks I have made on this platform, and the 
position of Mr. Lincoln upon it, I mean nothing personally dis- 
respectful or unkind to that gentleman. I have known him for 
nearly twenty-five years. There were many points of sympathy 
between us when we first got acquainted. We were both com- 
paratively boys, and both struggling with poverty in a strange 
land. I was a school-teacher in the town of Winchester, and 
he a flourishing grocery-keeper in the town of Salem. He was 
more successful in his occupation than I was in mine, and hence 
more fortunate in this world's goods. Lincoln is one of those pecu- 
liar men who perform with admirable skill everything which they 
undertake. I made as good a school-teacher as I could, and when 
a cabinet maker, I made a good bedstead and tables, although 
my old boss said I succeeded better with bureaus and secretaries 
than with anything else ; but I believe that Lincoln was always 
more successful in business than I, for his business enabled him 
to get into the legislature. I met him there, however, and had 
a sympathy with him, because of the up-hill struggle we both 
had in life. Ho was then just as good at telling an anecdote 
as now. He could beat any of the boys wrestling, or running 
a footrace, in pitching quoits or tossing a copper ; could ruin 
more liquor than all the boys of the town together, and the dig- 
nity and impartiality with which he presided at a horserace or 
fist-fight, excited the admiration and won the praise of evei-y- 
body that was present and participated. I sympathized with 
him, because he was struggling with difiiculties, and so was I. 
Mr. Lincoln served with me in the legislature in 1836, when 
we both retired, and he subsided, or became submerged, and he 
was lost sight of as a public man for some years. In 1846, 
when Wilmot introduced his celebrated proviso, and the 
Abolition tornado swept over the country, Lincoln again turned 
up as a member of Congress from the Sangamon District. I 
was then in the Senate of the United States, and was glad to 



10 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

welcome my old friend and companion. Whilst in Congross, he 
distinguished himself by his opposition to the Mexican war, 
taking the side of the common enemy against his own country ; 
and when he returned homo he found that the indignation of 
the people followed him everywhere, and he was again sub- 
merged or obliged to retire into private life, forgotten by his 
former friends. He came up again in 1854, just in time to 
make his Abolition or Black Republican platform, in company 
with Giddings, Lovejoy, Chase, and Fred Douglass, for the Re- 
publican party to stand upon." 

Mr. Lincoln answered as follows : — 

The judge is wofully at fault about his early friend Lincoln 
being a " grocery -keeper." I don't know as it would be a 
great sin, if I had been ; but he is mistaken. Lincoln never 
kept a grocery anywhere in the world. It is true that Lincoln 
did work the latter part of one winter in a little still-house, up 
at the head of a hollow. And so I think my friend, the Judge, 
is equally at fault when he charges me, at the time when I was 
in Congress, of having opposed our soldiers who were fighting 
in the Mexican war. The judge did not make his charge very 
distinctly, but I can tell you what he can prove, by referring to 
the record. You remember I was an old Whig, and whenever 
the Democratic party tried to get me to vote that the war had 
been righteously begun by the President, I would not do it. But 
whenever they asked for any money or land-waiTants, or any- 
thing to pay the soldiers there, during all that time, I gave the 
same vote that Judge Douglas did. You can think as you 
please as to whether that was consistent. Such is the truth ; and 
the Judge has the right to make all he can out of it. But when 
he, by a general charge, conveys the idea that I withheld sup- 
plies from the soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican war, 
or did anything else to hinder the soldiers, he is, to say the 
least, grossly and altogether mistaken, as a consultation of the 
records will prove to him. 

The Black Hawk Indian war broke out at this time. The 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 17 

violence with which it raged for a period of ten rnonths, created 
great excitement among the settlers. A company of volunteers 
was raised in New Salem, of which Abraham Lincoln was elected 
captain. He must have made his mark at this early date among 
his associates to have been raised to this post of confidence. 
The war terminated by the capture of Black Hawk, the Indian 
chief, and the total defeat of his warriors in August, 1S32. 

Mr. Lincoln, many years after, during his congressional 
career thus humorously alluded to his campaigning services. 

" By the way, IMr. Speaker, did you know I was a military 
hero ? Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk war I fought, 
bled, and came away. Speaking of Gen. Cass's career, reminds 
me of my own. I was not at Sullivan's defeat, but I was about 
as near to it as Cass was to Hull's surrender ; and like him I 
saw the place soon after. It is quite certain that I did not 
break my sword, for I had none to break ; but I bent my 
musket pretty badly on one occasion. If Cass broke his sword, 
the idea is, he broke it in desperation. I bent the musket by 
accident. If General Cass went in advance of me in picking 
whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charges upon the 
wild onions. If he saw any live fighting Indians, it was more 
than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the 
mosquitoes ; and although I never fainted from loss of blood, I 
certainly can say, I was often very hungry." 

This campaign cost a number of valuable lives, and the gov- 
ernment over two million dollars. Like most of the wars and 
diflBculties with Indian tribes, the conduct of the whites will 
not bear close inspection. The diflBculties were mainly caused 
by dispossession of the lands from their aboriginal occupants. 
A portion of Black Hawk's tribe, the Sacs, under Keokuk, a 
chief friendly to the whites, sold all their lands east of the Mis- 
sissippi. Black Hawk refused to move, and this was the primary 
cause of the war. There is but little doubt but that the Indian 
chief was at this time the leading spirit in a projected general 
attack by the Indians from Texas to the northern Mississippi, 
upon the frontier settlements of the United States. 
'I 



18 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

It was generally believed that such a plan was formed. The 
capture of the leader, Black Hawk, put an end to all hopes of 
the kind, entertained by the native tribes. Black Hawk was 
taken to "Washington, and after being kept prisoner at Fort 
Munroe for some months, was set at liberty by order of the 
President, General Jackson. 

When Mr. Lincoln returned to Sangamon County, he learned 
the art of surveying, and prosecuted that profession until the 
•financial crash of 1837 destroyed the value of real estate and 
ruined the business, — the result of which was that Lincoln's 
surveying apparatus was sold on an execution by the sheriff. 
Nothing daunted by this turn of ill-luck, he directed his atten- 
tion to the law, and borrowing a few books from a neighbor, 
which he took from the office in the evening and returned in the 
morning, he learned the rudiments of the profession in which 
he has since become so distinguished, Irj the light of a fire- 
place I 

The Cleveland Leader publishes the following touching 
events in the life of Abraham Lincoln, which is so interesting 
as illustrative of a noble character, that it is inserted herewith. 

" As a western man, I wish space to give vent to my enthu- 
siasm over the nomination of Hon. Abraham Lincoln, for 
President of the United States. Mr. Lincoln, or ' Old Abe,' 
as his friends familiarly call him, is a self-made man. A Ken- 
tuckian by birth, he emigrated to Illinois in his boyhood, where 
he earned his living at the anvil, devoting his leisure hours to 
study. Having chosen the law as his future calling, he devoted 
himself assiduously to its mastery, contending at every step with 
adverse fortune. During this period of study, he found a 
home under the hospitable roof of one Armstrong, a farmer 
who lived in a loghouse some eight miles from the village of 
Petersburg, Menard County. Here, clad in homespun, with 
elbows out, and knees covered with patches, young Lincola 
would master his lessons by the fire-light of the cabin, and then 
walk to town for the purpose of recitation. This man Arm- 
strong was himself poor, but he saw the genius struggling ia 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 19 

the young student, and opened to him his rude home, and bade 
Lira welcome to his coarse fare. How Lincoln graduated with 
promise, — how he has more than fulQllcd that promise, — 
how honorably he acquitted himself alike on the battle-field, in 
defending our border settlements against the ravages of savage 
foes, and in the halls of our national legislature, are matters of 
history, and need no repetition here. But one little incident of 
a more private nature, standing as it does as a sart of sequel 
to some things already alluded to, I deem worthy of record. 

" Some few years since the oldest son of Mr. Lincoln's old 
friend Armstrong, the chief support of his widowed mother, — 
the good old man having some time previously passed from 
earth, — was arrested on the charge of murder. A young man 
had been killed during a riotous melee, in the night time, at a 
camp-meeting, and one of his associates stated that the death- 
wound was inflicted by young Armstrong. A preliminary ex- 
amination was gone into, at which the accuser testified so posi- 
tively, that there seemed no doubt of the guilt of the prisoner, 
and therefore he was held for trial. As is too often the case, 
the bloody act caused an undue degree of excitement in the 
public mind. Every improper incident in the life of the pris- 
oner, — each act which bore the least semblance of rowdyism, — 
each school-boy quarrel, — was suddenly remembered and mag- 
nified, until they pictured him as a fiend of the most horrible 
hue. As these rumors spread abroad, they were received as 
gospel truth, and a feverish desire for vengeance seized upon 
the .infatuated populace, whilst only prison bars prevented a 
horrible death at the hands of a mob. The events were herald- 
ed in the county papers, painted in highest colors, accompanied 
by rejoicing over the certainty of punishment being meted out 
to the guilty party. The prisoner, overwhelmed by the cir- 
cumstances under which he found himself placed, fell into a 
melancholy condition, bordering upon despair; and the widowed 
mother, looking through her tears, saw no cause for hope from 
earthly aid. 

'* At this juncture, the widow received a letter from Mr. Lm- 



20 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

coin, volunteering his services in an effort to save the youth 
from the impending stroke. Gladly was his aid accepted, al- 
though it seemed impossible for even his sagacity to prevail in 
such a desperate case ; but the heart of the attorney was in his 
work, and ho set about it with a will that knew no such word as 
fail. Feeling that the poisoned condition of the public mind 
was such as to preclude the possibility of impanelling an impar- 
tial jury in the court having jurisdiction, he procured a change 
of venue and a postponement of the trial. He then went 
studiously to work unravelling the history of the case, and 
satisfied himself that his client was the victim of malice, and 
that the statements of the accuser were a tissue of falsehoods. 

"When the trial was called on, the prisoner, pale and emaci- 
ated, with hopelessness written on every feature, and accom- 
panied by his half-hoping, half-despairing mother, — whose only 
hope was in a mother's belief of her son'^ innocence, in the 
justice of the God she worshipped, and in the noble counsel, 
who, without the hope of fee or reward upon earth, had under- 
taken the cause, — took his seat in the prisoner's box, and with 
a ' stony firmness ' listened to the reading of the indictment. 
Lincoln sat quietly by, whilst the large auditory looked on him 
as though wondering what he could say in defence of one whose 
guilt they regarded as certain. The examination of the wit- 
nesses for the State was begun, and a well-arranged mass of 
evidence, circumstantial and positive, was introduced, which 
seemed to impale the prisoner beyond the possibility of extrac- 
tion. The counsel for the defence propounded but few ques- 
tions, and those of a character which excited no uneasiness on 
the part of the prosecutor, — merely, in most cases, requiring 
the main witnesses to be definite as to the time and place. 
When the evidence of the prosecution was ended, Lincoln in- 
troduced a few witnesses to remove some erroneous impressions 
in regard to the previous character of his client, who, though 
somewhat rowdy ish, had never been known to commit a vicious 
act ; and to show that a greater degree of ill-feeling existed 
between the accuser and the accused, than the accuser and the 
deceased. 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 21 

" The prosecutor felt tbat the case was a clear one, arc! his 
opening speech was brief and formal. Lincoln arose, while a 
deathly silence pervaded the vast audience, and in a clear and 
moderate tone began his argument. Slowly and carefully he 
reviewed the testimony, pointing out the hitherto unobserved 
discrepancies in the statements of the principal witness. That 
which had seemed plain and plausible, he made to appear 
crooked as a serpent's path. The witness had stated that the 
affair took place at a certain hour in the evening, and that, by 
the aid of the brightly shining moon he saw the prisoner inflict 
the death-blow with a slung-shot. Mr. Lincoln showed that at 
the hour referred to, the moon had not yet appeared above the 
horizon, and consequently the whole tale was a fabrication. 

"An almost instantaneous change seemed to have been wrought 
in the minds of his auditors, and the verdict of ' not guilty,' 
was at the end of every tongue. But the advocates vvas not 
content with this intellectual achievement. His whole being 
had for months been bound up in this work of gratitude and 
mercy, and, as the lava of the overcharged crater bursts from 
its imprisonment, so great thoughts and burning words leaped 
forth from the soul of the eloquent Lincoln. He drew a picture 
of the perjurer so horrid and ghastly that the accuser could sit 
under it no longer, but reeled and staggered from the court- 
room, whilst the audience fancied they could see the brand upon 
his brow. Then in words of thrilling pathos Lincoln appealed 
to the jurors as fathers of sons who might become fatherless, 
and as husbands of wives who might be widowed, to yield to 
no previous impressions, no ill-founded prejudice, but to do his 
client justice ; and as he alluded to the debt of gratitude which 
he owed the boy's sire, tears were seen to fall from many eyes 
unused to weep. 

" It was near night when he concluded by saying that if justice 
was done — as he believed it would be — before the sun should 
set, it would shine upon his client a free man. The jury re- 
tired, and the court adjourned for the day. Half an hour had 
not elapsed, when, as the officers of the court and the volunteer 



22 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

attorney sat at the tea-table of their hotel, a messenger announced 
that the jury had returned to their seats. All repaired imme- 
diately to the court-house, and whilst the prisoner was being 
brought from the jail, the court-room was filled to overflowing 
with citizens of the town. When the prisoner and his mother 
entered, silence reigned as completely as though the house 
were empty. The foreman of the jury, in answer to the usual 
inquiry from the court, delivered the verdict of ' Not Guilty ! ' 
The widow dropped into the arms of her son, who lifted her up 
and told her to look upon him as before, free and innocent. 
Then, with the words, ' Where is Mr. Lincoln ? ' he rushed 
across the room and grasped the hand of his deliverer, whilst 
his heart was too full for utterance. Lincoln turned his eyes 
toward the West, where the sun still lingered in view, and then, 
turning to the youth, said, ' It is not yet sundown, and you are 
free.' I confess that my cheeks were not wholly unwet by 
tears, and I turned from the affecting scene. As I cast a glance 
behind, I saw Abraham Lincoln obeying the divine injunction, 
by comforting the widowed and the fatherless." 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 23 



CHAPTERII. 

Entrance into Tublic Life — Election to State Legislature — Presidential Elec- 
tor — Election to Congress — Action therein, etc. 

Mr. Lincoln early identified himself with the Whig party, 
and was long a disciple and admirer of " Harry of the West." 
He belongs by character and association to that school of mod- 
erate, conservative men, who sought the peaceful extinction of 
the slave system by the gradually ameliorating influences of ad- 
vancing sentiment and civilization. When the party with which 
he had so long acted was fully handed over to the will of the 
Slave Power, Mr. Lincoln, like Mr. Seward and others, tried to 
save it from complete destruction. Failing this, he was found 
among the first to work for the formation of a new organization, 
which should direct the uprising waves of public feeling on the 
subject of slavery aggressions. 

After Mr. Lincoln's return, in 1832, from the Black Hawk 
campaign, he became a candidate for the State legislature, 
but was defeated. 

In 1834, he was returned to the legislature by his party, and 
served for the next six years in the lower house, running the 
gauntlet of three elections and succeeding in each. In 1836, 
Mr. Douglas was returned to the legislature and sat on the 
Democratic side of the House. Here commenced that personal 
as well as political rivalry which still continues between these 
two eminent men. 

At this period the fever of speculation was at its height 
throughout the West. A magnificent scheme of internal im- 
provement was projected for Illinois. The credit of the State 
was beginning to stagger under its erroneous banking system. 



24 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

and the debts incurred to carry forward the projected canals 
and railroad. Mr. Lincoln was in favor of internal improve- 
ments, but his course .was marked by judicious ap[)roval of 
plans well matured, likely to benefit the State and increase 
its prosperity. 

Mr. Lincoln took up his residence at Springfield, the capitol 
of the State, and engaged in the practice of the law. He had 
studied during his first legislative term, and was admitted to 
the bar. He soon became a prominent and successful advocate. 

The diligent attention necessarj'^ to secure success in his 
chosen profession did not prevent him from taking an active 
part in both local and national politics. He soon became one 
of the recognized leaders of the "Whig party in the Northwest, 
and was placed on the Harrison and Clay electoral tickets in the 
Presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1844. In the latter can- 
vass he took the stump for Henry Clay, and made a tour of Illi- 
nois, advocating his claim, to the Presidency. 

He was elected in 184G to the popular branch of the national 
Congress, from the central district of Illinois. The State leg- 
islature was Democratic, and at the same time Mr. Douglas 
was elected to the United States Senate. Mr. Lincoln took 
his seat in the "Thirtieth Congress, in Dec, 1847. James K. 
Folk was President when Mr. Hamlin, at this session, first took 
his seat as Senator from Maine. He then acted with the 
DeHptPcratic party. The IMexican war was being waged. Much 
oppo&iti^yiCv^^i^*'^^ to the administration on account thereof The 
election as Speaker, by the House of Representatives, of Robert 
€. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, showed the President and Cab- 
inet to be in a, minority in that branch of Congress. 

The sessions .of the Thirtieth Congress were crowded with 
important events. The unjust war with Mexico, commenced 
mainly with a view ,tp the extension of Slavery, was terminated 
on the 30th of May, 1848. By the treaty of peace, 3Iesico 
ceded to the United States the territory comprised in New Mex- 
ico and Upper California.. The lower Rio Grande, from its mouth 
to El Paflo, was made th^ boundary of Texas. 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 25 

On tlie 22(1 of Dec. 1847, Mr. Lincoln introtlnccd a resolu- 
tion, calling upon the President to inform Congress whether the 
spot on ■which the first blood was shed, was on American soil or 
not. He voted steadily in opposition to the administration. 

The question of organizing a Territorial Government in Ore- 
gon, came up for discussion during the first session of this 
Cong! ess. Mr. Calhoun desired to insert in the Oregon bill, 
his doctrine, of no power in Congress to abolish slavery in the 
Ten itories. This brought up the whole subject. Mr. Douglas 
proposed in the Senate to extend the line of 86° 30", as laid 
down in the Wilmot proviso. This was one of that demagogue's 
first concessions to the South. 

A bill for organizing Oregon, applying the conditions of the 
celebrated Northwest Ordinance of 1787, to the new Territory, 
was introduced into the House. The Slavery Prohibition pro- 
vision was stricken out. Mr. Lincoln spoke and voted against 
the amendment. It was lost by a vote of 114 to 88. The bill 
passed the House on the 2d of August, 1848, by a vote of 127 
to 70. In the Senate, Mr. Douglas moved to amend by extend- 
ing the line of 36° 30", to the Pacific. This was agreed to, 
on the 12th of August. The amended bill was sent to the 
House, which disagreed by a vote of 121 to 82. Mr. Lincoln 
voted steadily throughout this contest in favor of congressional 
prohibition of slavery. He performed yeoman service during 
this session, making himself felt in the House, as a man of 
ability. His humorous, quick, keen oratorical powers made 
him a decided character, and when he rose to speak, the House, 
feeling sure that he would make his points clearly and say some- 
thing worth hearing, always listened with attention. It was his 
custom to note down the points to which he wished to speak, 
and then trust to the glowing heat of his own mind for the 
sparks to fly whither they were meant. At first, his tone was 
slow and drawling, his manner heavy, but as he proceeded, he 
grew warm with argument. His features lighted up, his tone 
became clearer and more penetrating, and the orator, heated 
with his subject, would commence rapidly walking up and down 



26 LIFE AND KtBI.TC SERVICES 

the floor, one hand behind his coat-tail, the other gesticulating, 
while fast as the House subsided under some repartee br witty 
anecdote, another would come tumbling forth, always hitting 
point-blank where it was aimed. 

The second session of the Thirtieth Congress was marked by 
an exciting debate, caused by the introduction of a resolution of 
thanks to General Taylor, and the army in Mexico, for the con- 
duct of the war. Mr. Ashmun, of Massachusetts, (President 
of the Chicago Convention,) moved to amend an amenduienfc 
which virtually indorsed the administration in commencing the 
war, by adding the words, " In a war unnecessarily and uncon- 
stitutionally begun by the President of the United States." 

This amendment was finally carried, by a vote of 85 to 82, 
Mr. Lincoln voting in the affirmative. Throughout his congres- 
sional career, he steadily voted with the Whigs against the 
administration and its measures, as carried out in the Mexican 
war, and attempted to be enforced in the organization of Oregon. 

Mr. Lincoln took an active part in the Whig Convention, 
which, in 1848, nominated General Taylor for the Presidency. 
He canvassed his own State for the nominee. He also visited 
New England during the campaign, and attended the Whig 
State Convention, at Worcester. He afterwards went to New 
Uedford, where he. made a political address, of which the 
Mercury of September 15, 1848, contains the following men- 
tion : — 

" Mr. Page, Chairman of the Executive Committee, intro- 
duced the Hon. Abraham Lincoln, member of Congress from 
Illinois, who had kindly yielded to the earnest solicitations of 
the Committee to come from Worcester to address our citizens. 
Mr. Lincoln enchained the attention of a delighted audience for 
nearly two hours. His speech covered the whole ground of the 
national election, and was marked by great originality, clear, 
conclusive, convincing reasoning, and enlivened by frequent 
flashes of genuine, racy, Western wit. We have rarely seen a 
more attentive or interested audience. In fact, he took the 
hours right between wind and water, and made a most admirable 



OF ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 27 

and effective speech, which cannot M\ to make a lasting impres- 
sion on bis hearers, and to gain friends for that honest old maa 
and tried patriot, as well as soldier, Zachary Taylor. 

"After Mr. Lincoln finished his address, the audience gave 
him three hearty cheers, and repeated, with rousing cheers, for 
Taylor and Fillmore." 

In the following year, he was the candidate of his party in 
the legislature for United States Senator, but the Whigs were 
in the minority. 



28 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



CHAPTER III. 

1854 — The Nebraska Bill Agitation In Illinois — Position of Mr. Lincoln — 
Speech at Peoria- Anti-Kebraska Convention — Campaign of lSo(J. 

From 1849 to 1854, Mr. Lincoln was engaged assiduously 
in the practice of his profession, and, being deeply immersed in 
business, was beginning to lose his interest in politics, when the 
scheming ambition of an unscrupulous aspirant to the Presiden- 
cy brought about the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. That 
act of baseness and perfidy aroused Mr. Lincoln, and he pre- 
pared for new efforts. He threw himself at once into the con- 
test that followed, and fought the battle of freedom on the 
ground of his former conflicts in Illinois with more than his 
accustomed energy and zeal. Those who recollect the tremendous 
battle fought in Illinois that year will award to Abraham Lin- 
coln fully three fourths of the ability and unwearying labor 
which resulted in the victory which gave Illinois her first 
Republican legislature, and placed Lyman Trumbull in the 
Senate of the United States. The first and greatest debate of 
that year came off between Lincoln and Douglas, at Springfield, 
during the progress of the State Fair, in October. The Chicago 
Press and Tribune describes the scene in the following graphic 
manner : — 

The affair came off" on the fourth day of October, 1854. The 
State Fair had been in progress two days, and the capital was full 
of all manner of men. The Nebraska bill had been passed on the 
previous twenty-second of May. Mr. Douglas had returned to 
Illinois to meet an outraged constituency. He had made a frag- 
mentary speech in Chicago, the people filhng up each hiatus in a 
peculiar and good-humored way. He called the people a mob ; 
thoy called him a rowdy. The "mob" had the best of it, both then 
and at the election which succeeded. The notoriety of all these 
events had stirred up the politics of the State from bottom to top. 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 29 

Iliindrcds of active politicians had met at Spiingfield, expecting a 
tournamcut of an unusual character, — Douglas, Breese, Koerncr, 
Lincoln, Trumbull, Mattcson, Yates, Codding, John Calhoun, (of 
the order of the Candle-Box.) John M. Palmer, the whole house 
of the McConnells, Singleton, (known to fame in the Mormon 
war.) Thomas L. Harris, and a host of others. Several spee dies 
were made before, and several afccr, the passage between Lincoln 
and Douglas, but that was justly h-ld to be the event of the season. 

We do not know whether a challenge to debate passed between 
the friends of the speakers or not, but tlu^re was a perfectly amica- 
ble understanding between Lincoln and Douglas that the former 
should speak two or three hours, and the latter reply in just as little 
or as much time as he chose. Mr. Lincoln took the stand at two 
o'clock, — a large crowd in attendance, and Mr. Douglas seated on 
a small platform in front of the desk. The first half hour of Mr. 
Lincoln's speech was taken up v,-ith compliments to his distinguished 
friend, Judge Douglas, and dry allusions to the political events of 
the past few years. His distinguished friend. Judge Douglas, had 
taken his seat, as solemn as the Cock-lane ghost, evidently with the 
design of not moving a muscle till it came his turn to speak. Tiie 
laughter jirovoked by Lincoln's exordium, however, scon began to 
make him uneasy, and when Mr. Lincoln arrived at his (Douglas's) 
speech, pronouncing the Missouri Compromise " a sacred thiug 
■which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless enough to disturb," 
he opened his lips far enough to remark, "A first-rate speech!" 
This was the beginning of an amusing colloquy. 

" Yes," continued Lincoln, '• so affectionate was my friend's 
regard for this compromise line, that when Texas was admitted into 
the Union, and it was found that a strip extended north of 36°o0', 
he actually introduced a bill extending the line, and prohibiting 
slavery in the northern edge of the new State." 

"And you voted against the bill," said Douglas. 

" Precisely so," answered Lincoln ; " I was in favor of running 
the line a great deal further South." 

"About this time," the speaker continued, " my distinguished 
friend introduced me to a particular friend of his, one David 
Wilmot, of Pennsylvania." [Laughter.] 

"I thought," said Douglas, " you would find him congenial com- 
pany." 

" So I did," replied Lincoln. " I had the pleasure of voting for 
his proviso, in one way and another, about forty times. It was a 



30 LIFE AXD PUBLIC SERVICES 

Demncra'ic measure then, I believe. At any rate, General Cass 
scolded honest John Davis, of Massachusetts, soundly ibr talking 
away the last hours of the session, so that he (Cass) couldn't crowd 
it through. Apropos of General Cass; if I am not greatly mistaken, 
he has a prior claim to my distinguished friend to the authorship of 
popular sovereignty. The old gentleman has an infirmity for 
writing letters. Shortly after the scolding he gave John Davis, he 
wrote his Nicholson letter — " 

Douglas, (solemnly.) "God Almighty placed man on the earth, 
and told him to choose between good and evil. That was the 
origin of the Nebraska Bill ! " 

Lincoln. " Well, the priority of invention being settled, let us 
award all credit to Judge Douglas for being the first to discover it." 

It would be impossible, in these limits, to give an idea of the 
strength of Mr. Lincoln's argument. "We deemed it by far the 
ablest eflbrt of the campaign, — from whatever source. The occa- 
sion was a great one, and the speaker was every way equal to it. 
The effect produced on the listeners was magnetic. No one who 
was present will ever forget the power and vehemence of the 
following passage : — 

" ]\ly distmguished friend says it is an insult to the emigrants to 
Kansas and Nebraska to suppose that they are not able to govern 
themselves. We must not slur over an argument of this kind, 
because it happens to tickle the ear. It must be met and answered. 
I admit that the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is competent to 
govern Idinself, but " (the speaker rising to his full height) '■'I deny 
his right to govern any other person without that terson's 
coxsEXT." The applause which followed this triumphal refutatioQ 
of a cunning falsehood was but an earnest of the victory at the 
polls which followed just one month from that day. 

Wlien Mr. LIucoIq had concluded, Mr. Douglas strode hastily 
to the stand. As usual, be employed ten minutes in telling 
Low grossly he had been abused, recollecting himself, he added, 
" though in a perfectly courteous manner," — abused in a per- 
fectly courteous manner ! He then devoted half an hour to 
showing that it was indispensably necessary to California emi- 
grants, Santa Fe traders and others, to have organic acts pro- 
vided for the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, — tliat being 
precisely the point which nobody disputes. Having established 
these premises to his satisfaction, Mr. Douglas launched forth into 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 31 

an argument wholly apart from the positions taken by Mr. Lin- 
coln, lie had about half finished at .six o'clock, when an 
atljournment to tea was effected. The speaker insisted strenu- 
ously upon his right to resume in the evening, but wo believe 
the second part of that speech has not been delivered to this 
day. After the Springfield passage, the two speakers went to 
I'eoria, and tried it again, with identically the same results. A 
friend who listened to the Peoria debate, informed us that after 
Lincoln had finished, Douglas "hadn't much to say," — wliich 
WG presume to have been Mr. Douglas's view of the case also, 
for the reason that he ran away from his antagonist and kept 
out of his way during the remainder of his campaign. 

At Peoria, in the same summer, Mr. Lincoln made a speech, 
from which we extract. 

THE SPREAD OF SLAVERY. 

This is the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The foregoinw 
history may not be precisely accurate in every particular ; but I 
am sure it is sufficiently so for all the uses I shall attempt to make 
of it, and in it we have before us the chief materials enaUinnf us 
to correctly judge whether the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
is right or wrong. 

I think, and shall try to show, that it it wrong, — wrong in its 
direct eflTect, letting slavery into Kansas and Nebraska, and wrong 
in its prospective principle, allowing it to spread to every other 
part of the wide world, where men can be found inclined to 
take it. 

This declared indiflerence, but, as I must think, covert real zeal 
for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate. I hate it because of 
the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I bate it because it de- 
prives our Republican example of its just influence in the world; 
enables the enemies of fi'ce institutions, with plauslbilitj', to taunt 
us as hypocrites ; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our 
sini-crity, and especially because it forces so many really good men 
amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental 
principles of civil liberty, criticising the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but 
sdf-interest. 

Before proceeding, let me say, I think I have no prejudice 
against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in 



32 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

their situation. If slavery did not now exist among tliem, they 
■would not introduce it. It" it did now exist among us, we should 
not instantly give it up. This I beheve of the masses North and 
South. Doubtless there are individuals, on both sides, who would 
not hold slaves under any circumstances ; and others who would 
gladly introduce slavery anew if it were out of existence. We 
know that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North, and 
become tip-top Abolitionists; while some Northern ones go South, 
and become most cruel slave-masters. 

WUAT SHALL BE DONE ? 

When Southern people tell us they arc no more responsible for 
the origin of slavery than we, I acknowledge the fact. When it is 
said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid 
of it, in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the 
saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should 
not know liow to do myself. If all earthly power were given me, 
I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution. My 
first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to 
Liberia — to their own native land. But a moment's rellection 
would convince me, that whatever of high hope (as I tliink tliere 
's) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is 
impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they would all 
perish in the next ten days ; and there are not surplus shipping 
and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in 
many times ten days. "N^Hiat then ? Free them all, and keep 
them among us as underlings ? Is it quite certain that this betters 
their condition ? I think I would not hold one in slavery at any 
rate ; yet the point is not clear enough to me to denounce people 
upon. What next '? Free them, and make them politically and 
socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and 
if mine would, ivc well know that those of the great mass of white 
people win not. Wiicthcr this feeling accords with justice and 
sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part 
of it. A universal feeling, whether Avell or ill founded, cannot be 
sately disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It docs 
seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted ; 
but for their tardin(>s3 in this, I will not undertake to judge our 
brethren of the South. 

When they remind us of (heir constitutional rights, I acknowl- 
etlge them, not grudgingly, but fully and fairly ; and 1 would give 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 33 

them any legislation for the reclaiming of their fugitives, -which 
should not, in its stringency, be more likely to carry a free man 
into slaverj-, than our ordinary criminal laws arc to hang an inno- 
cent one. 

But all this, to my judgment, furnislies no more excuse for per- 
mitting slavery to go into our own free territory, than it would for 
reviving the African slave-trade by law. The law which forbids 
the bringing of slaves from Africa, and that which has so long for- 
bid the taking of them to Nebraska, can hardly be distinguished. on 
any moral principle ; and the repeal of the former could find quite 
as plausible excuses as that of the latter. "" 

In October of the same year, a mass convention of the 
anti-Nebraska men was held at Springfield. The following 
resolutions were there adopted. The platform adopted was 
more radical than the sentiments then and since avowed by- 
Mr. Lincoln, — 

1. Resolved, That we believe this truth to be self-evident, that 
■when parties become subversive of the ends for which they are 
established, or incapable of restoring the Government to the true 
principles of the Constitution, it is the right and duty of the p^ple 
to dissolve the political bands by which they may have been con- 
nected therewith, and to organize new parties upon such principles 
and with such views as the circumstances and exigencies of the 
nation may demand. 

2. Resolved, That the times Imperatively demand the reorgan- 
ization of parties, and, repudiating all previous parlv attachments, 
names, and predilections, we unite ourselves together in defence of 
the liberty and Constitution of the country, and will hereafter co- 
operate as the Republican party, pledged to the accomplishment of 
the following purposes: To bring the administration of the Gov- 
ernment back to the control of first principles ; to restore Nebraska 
and Kansas to the position of free territories ; that as the Constitu- 
tion of the United States vests in the States, and not in Congress, 
the power to legislate for the extradition of fugitives fi-om labor, to 
repeal and entirely abrogate the Fugitive Slave Law ; to restrict 
slavery to those States in which it exists ; to prohibit the admission 
of any more slave States into the Union ; to abolish slavery in the 
District of Columbia ; to exclude slavery from all the territories 
over which the General Government has exclusive jmisdiction ; and 

3 



34 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

to resist the acquirements of any more territories unless the prac- 
tice of slavery therein forever shall have been prohibited. 

3. Resolvid, that in furtherance of these principles we -nill use 
such constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to 
their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for office, 
under the General or State Government, who is not positively and 
fully committed to the support of these principles, and whose pcr- 
sonid character and conduct is not a guaranty that he is reliable, 
and who shall not have abjured old party allegiance and ties. 

In 1855, Mr. Lincoln was again a candidate before the leg- 
islature for the United States senatorship, but was unsuccessful, 
Judge Trumbull being elected to the position be has since 
so ably filled. 

The Republican party being fully organized with the gal- 
lant Fremont as its candidate for the Presidency, ]Mr. 
Lincoln was placed at the head of the State Electoral 
Ticket. He canvassed the State during that exciting cam- 
paign. 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 35 



CHAPTER IV. 



Nomination as Senator at Springfield — Speecli of Acceptance — Cliallenge to 
Douglas — Correspondence. 



TuE Republican State Convention of Illinois, that met at 
Springfield, June 17, 1858, placed in nomination Abraham Lin- 
coln as its candidate for the United States senatorship, soon to be 
vacated by the expiration of Judge Douglas's term. The latter 
came fresh from his celebrated Lecompton struggle, to fight 
both the Republican candidate and the friends of the adminis- 
tration. The strife was indeed an arduous one, and won the 
admiration of the "Little Giant's " most determined foes. 

In accepting this nomination, tendered him by the Conven- 
tion, Mr. Lincoln gives expression to the principles which be 
conceived should govern the coming canvass. He also ana- 
lyzes the position of Senator Douglas and of both wings of 
the Democratic party. The speech will be found terse, logical, 
and vigorous. It reviews the position of the two branches of 
the Democracy, and exposes in a scathing manner the false 
premises and weaker deductions of his opponent. He com- 
menced by enunciating, in the broadest manner — 



THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : If we could 
first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could 



36 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERTICES 

"better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far 
into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated with the avowed 
object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. 
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not 
ceased, but has constantly augmented. In ray opinion, it will not 
cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. " A house 
divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government can- 
not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the Union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the house to fall ; but 
I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing 
or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in 
the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advo- 
cates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful In all the 
States ; old as well as new, North as well as South. 

THE DRED SCOTT DECISIOX — ITS HISTORY. 

Have we no tendency to the latter condition ? 

Let any one who doubts, carefully contemplate that now almost 
complete legal combination, — piece of machinery, so to speak, — 
compounded of the Nebraska doctrine, and the Dred Scott deci- 
sion. Let him consider not only what work the machinery Is adapted 
to do, and how well adapted ; but also, let him study the history of 
its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail. If he can, to 
trace the evidences of design, and concert of action, among its chief 
architects, from the beginning. 

The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than 
half the States by State constitutions, and from most of the national 
territory by congressional prohibition. Four days later, commenced 
the struggle which ended In repealing that congressional prohibi- 
tion. This opened all the national territory to slavery, and was the 
first point gained. 

But, so far, Congress only had acted ; and an Indorsement by the 
people, real or apparent, was Indispensable, to save the point already 
gained, and give chance for more. 

This necessity had not been overlooked ; but had been provided 
for, as well as might be. In the notable argument of " squatter sov- 
ereignty," otherwise called " sacred right of self-government," which 
latter phrase, though expressive of the only rightful basis of any 
government, was so perverted in this attempted use of it as to 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 37 

amount to just this : That if any one man choose to enslave another, 
110 third man shall be allowed to object. That argument was incor- 
jiorated into the Nebraska bill Itself, in the language which follows: 
"It being ihe true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate 
slavery into any territory or State, nor to exclude it therefi-om ; 
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate 
their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the 
Constitution of the United States." Then opened the roar of loose 
declamation in flivor of " Squatter Sovereignty," and " sacred right 
of self-goverinnent." " But," said opposition members, " let us amend 
the bill so as to expressly declare that the people of the temtory 
may exclude slavery." " Not we," said the friends of the measure ; 
and down they voted the amendment. 

Wiiile the Nebraska bill was passing through Congress, alaw case 
involving the question of a negro's freedom, by reason of his owner 
having voluntarily taken him into a free State, and then into a ter- 
ritory covered by the congressional prohibition, and held him as a 
slave for a long time in each, was passing through the U. S. Circuit 
Court for the District of Missouri ; and both Nebraska bill and law- 
suit were brought to a decision in the same month of May, 1854. The 
negro's name was " Dred Scott," which name now designates the 
decision finally made in the case. Before the then next presiden- 
tial election, tlie law case came to, and was argued in, the Supreme 
Court of the United States ; but the decision of it was deferred 
until after the election. Still, before the election, Senator Trum- 
bull, on the floor of the Senate, requested the leading advocate 'of 
the Nebraska bill to state his opinion whether the people of a terri- 
tory can constitutionally exclude slavery from their limits; and the 
latter answers : " That is a question for the Supreme Court." 

The election came. Mr. Buchanan was elected, and the indorse- 
ment, such as it was, secured. That was the second point gained. 
The indorsement, however, fell short of a clear popular majority by 
nearly four hundred thousand votes, and so, perhaps, was not over- 
whelmingly reliable and satisfactory. The outgoing President, in 
his last annual message, as impressively as possible echoed back 
upon the people the weight and authority of the indorsement. The 
Supreme Court met again ; did not announce their decision, but 
ordered a reargument. The presidential inauguration came, and 
still no decision of the court; but the incoming President, in his 
iua agural address, fervently exhorted the people to abide by the 



38 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

forthcoming flccision, whatever it might be. Then, ia a few days, 
came the decision. 

The reputed auti)or of the Nebraska bill finds an early occasion 
to make a speech at this capital indorsing the Di-ed Scott decision, 
and vehemently denouncing all opposition to it. The new Presi- 
dent, too, seizes the early occasion of the Silliman letter to indorse 
and strongly construe that decision, and to express his astonishment 
that any different view had ever been entertained ! 

At length a squabble springs up between the President and the 
author of the Nebraska bill, on the mere question of fact, whether 
the Lecomptou Constitution was or was not, in any just sense, made 
by the people of Kansas ; and in that quarrel the latter declai es 
that all he wants is a fair vote for the people, and that he cares not 
whether slavery be voted doicn or voted uj). I do not understand 
his declaration that he cares not whether slavery be voted down or 
voted up, to be intended by him other than as an apt definition of 
the policy he would impress upon the public mind, — the principle 
for which he declares he has suffered so much, and is ready to suffer 
to the end. And well may he cling to that principle. If he has 
any parental feeling, well may he cling to it. That principle is the 
only shred left of his original Nebraska doctrine. Under the Dred 
Scott decision, " squatter sovereignty " squatted out of existence, 
tumbled down, like temporary scafiblding, — like the mould at the 
foundry served through one blast, and fell back into loose sand, — 
lielped to carry an election, and then was kicked to the winds. His 
late joint struggle with the Republicans, against the Leconipton 
Constitution, involves nothing of the original Nebraska do;-trine. 
That struggle was made on a point — the right of a people to make 
then" own constitution — upon wliich he and the Republicans have 
never differed. 

ITS WOnKINGS AND OBJECTS. 

The several points of the Dred Scott decision, in connection with 
Senator Douglas's " care not " policy, constitute the piece of machin- 
ery, in its present state of advancement. This was the third point 
gained. The working points of that machinery are : — 

First, That no negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no 
descendant of such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the 
sense of that term as used in the Constitution of the United States. 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 39 

This point is made in order to deprive the negro, in every possible 
event, of the benefit of that provision of the United States Constitu- 
tion, which declares that " The citizens of each State shall be enti- 
tled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 
States." 

Secondly, That " subject to the Constitution of the United 
States," neither Congress nor a territorial legislature can exclude 
slavery from any United States territory. This point is made in 
order that individual men may fill up the territories with slaves, 
without danger of losing them as property, and thus to enhance the 
chances of permanency to the institution through all the future. 

Thirdly, That whether the holding a negro in actual slavery in 
a free State, makes him free, as against the holder, the United 
States courts wil| not decide, but will leave to be decided by the 
courts of any slave State t\e negro may be forced into by the 
master. This point is made, not to be pressed immediately ; but, if 
acquiesced in for a while, and apparently indorsed by the people at 
an election, then to sustain the logical conclusion that what Dred 
Scott's master might lawfully do with Dred Scott, In the free State of 
Illinois, every other master may lawfully do with any other one 
or one thousand slaves, In Illinois, or ui any other free State. 

Auxiliary to all this, and working hand In hand with it, the Ne- 
braska doctrine, or what is left of it, Is to educate and mould public 
opinion, at least Northern public opinion, not to care whether 
slavery Is voted down or voted up. This shows exactly where we 
now are ; and partially, also, whither we are tendmg. 

THE CONSPIRACY. 

It will throw additional light on the latter, to go back, and run 
the mind over the string of historical facts already stated. Several 
tilings will now appear less dark and mysterious than they did when 
they were transpiring. The people were to be left " perfectly free," 
" subject only to the Constitution." What the Constitution had to 
do with it, outsiders could not then -see. Plainly enough now, it was 
an exactly fitted niche, for the Dred Scott decision to afterward 
come In, and declare the perfect freedom of the people to be just no 
freedom at all. Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the 
right of the people, voted down? Plainly enough now: the adop- 
tion of It wouhl have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision. 
Why was the court decision held up '? Why even a Senator's in- 



40 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

dividual opinion Avithheld, till after the presidential election ? 
Plainly enough now : the speaking out then would have damaged 
tlie perfectly free argument upon which the election was to be 
can'ied. Why the outgoing President's felicitation on the indorse- 
ment ? Why the delay of a reargument ? Why the incoming 
President's advance exhortation in favor of the decision ? These 
things look like the cautious patting and petting of a spirited horse 
preparatory to mounting him, when it is dreaded that he may give 
the rider a fall. And why the hasty after-indorsement of the deci- 
feion by the President and others ? 

We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are 
the result of preconcert. But when we see a lot of framed timbers, 
different portions of which we know have been gotten out at dif- 
ferent times and places and by different workmen, — Stephen, 
Franklin, Roger, and James, for insftmce, — and when we see these 
timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a 
house or a mill, all the tenons and mortices exactly fitting, and all 
the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted 
to their respective places, and not a piece too many or too few, — 
not omitting even scaffolding, — or, if a single piece be lacking, we 
see the place in the frame exactly fitted and prepared yet to bring 
such piece in, — In such a case, we find It impossible not to believe 
that Stephen, and Franklin, and Roger, and James, all understood 
one anotlicr from the beginning, and all worked upon a common 
plan or draft drawn up before the first blow was struck. 

It should not be overlooked that, by the Nebraska bill, the people 
of a State as well as territory, were to be left " perfectly free," 
" subject only to the Constitution." AVliy mention a State ? They 
were legislating for territories, and not for or about States. Cer- 
tainly the people of a State are and ought to be subje(;t to the Con- 
stitution of the United States; but why Is mention of this lugged 
into this* merely territorial law? Why are the people of a terri- 
tory and the people of a State therein lumped together, and their 
relation to the Constitution therein treated as being precisely the 
same? Wiiile the opinion of the court, by Chief Justice Taney, in 
the Dred Scott case, and tiie separate opinions of all the concurring 
judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States 
neither permits Congress nor a territorial legislature to exclude 
slavery from any United States territory, they all omit to declare 
whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the jteople 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 41 

of a State to exclude it. Posdhhj, this is a mere omission ; but -vvho 
can be quite sure, if McLean or Curtis had sought to get into the 
opinion a declaration of unlimited power in the people of a State to 
exclude slavery from their limits, just as Chase and Mace sought to 
get such declaration, in behalf of the people of a territory, into the 
Nebraska bill ; — I ask, who can be quite sure that it would not 
have been voted down in the one case as it had been in the other ? 
The nearest approach to the point of declaring the power of a State 
over slavery, is made by Judge Nelson. He approaches it more 
than once, using tlie precise idea, and almost the language, too, of 
the Nebraska act. On one occasion, his exact language is, " Except 
in cases where the power is restrained by the Constitution of the 
United States, the law of the State is supreme over the subject of 
slavery within its jurisdiction." In what cases the power of the 
States is so resti-ained by the United States Constitution, is left an 
open (question, precisely as the same question, as to the restraint on 
the power of the territories, was left open in the Nebraska act. 
Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, 
wljich we may, ere long, see filled Avith another Supreme Court 
decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does 
not permit a State to exclude slavery from its limits. And this maj 
especially be expected if the doctrine of "care not whether slaver* 
be voted down or voted up," shall gain upon the public mind suffi« 
ciently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when 
made. 

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike law- 
ful in all the States. Welcome, or unwelcome, such decision is 
probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the 
present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall 
lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on 
the verge of making their State free, and we shall awake to the 
reality instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave 
State. To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is the 
work now before all those who would prevent that consummation. 
That is what we have to do. How can we best do it ? 

THE SLAVE OLIGARCHY AND JUDGE DOUGLAS. 

There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends, and 
yet whisper us softly, that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument 



42 LIFE AND PUBUC SERVICES 

there Is -with ■nbich to effect that object. They wish us (o infer all, 
from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head 
of the dynasty ; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single 
point, upon which he and we have never differed. They remind 
us that he is a great man, and that the largest of us are very small 
ones. Let this be granted. But " a living dog is better than a 
dead lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at 
least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances 
of slavery? He don't care anything about it. His avowed mis- 
sion is Impressing the " public heart " to care nothing about it. A 
leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas's superior 
talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade. 
Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? 
He has not said so. Does he really think so ? But if it is, how can 
he resist It ? For years he has labored to prove it a sacred right of 
white men to take negro slaves Into the new territories. Can lie 
possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they 
can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought 
cheaper In Africa than in Virginia. He has done all in his power to 
reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of 
property ; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade, — 
how can he refuse that trade, in that " property " shall be " perfectly 
free," — unless he does it as a protection to the home production ? 
And as the home producers will probably not ask the protection, he 
will bo wholly without a ground of opposition. 

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be 
wiser to-day than he was yesterday, that he may rightfully change 
when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run 
ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, of which 
he, himself, has given no intimation ? Can we safely base our 
action upon any such vague inference ? N^ow, as ever, I wish not 
to misrepresent Judge Douglas's position, question his motives, or 
do aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if 
ever, he and we can come together on principle so that our cause 
may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have Inter- 
posed no adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he is not now with 
us ; he does not pretend to be ; he does not promise ever to be. 

Our cause, then, must be Intrusted to, and conducted by, Its own 
undoubted friends,— those whose hands are free, whose hearts are 
in the work, who do care for the result. Two years ago the lie- 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 43 

The canvass that ensued was one of tbo most memorable 
political contests in the history of this country. Mr. Lin- 
coln's conduct of the Republican cause, against confessedly 
one of the most powerful and able of politicians now living, 
won for him, at once, a national reputation. It was his mas- 
terly expose of the Democratic treachery to the Union, which 
caused him to be taken up by the Chicago Convention and 
made the standard-bearer of the party during the ensuing im- 
portant contest. 

Mr. Lincoln spoke twice in the canvass previous to the com- 
mencement of the joint debates between himself and Senator 
Douglas. 

The following correspondence shows the arrangements for 
the joint debates, which, in the summer of 1858, made the peo- 
ple of the county generally look so eagerly to Illinois. The 
challenge for the joint discussion, as will be seen, proceeded 
from the Republican candidate. 

Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Doufjlas. 

Chicago, III., July 24, 1858. 
Hon. S. A. Douglas — Mij Dear Sir: Will It be agreeable to 
you to make an arrangement for you and myself to divide time, 
and address the same audiences, the present canvass ? Mr. Judd, 
who will hand you this, Is authorized to receive your answer ; and, 
if agreeable to you, to enter Into the terms of such arrangement. 
Your obedient servant, 

A. LINCOLN. 



Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. 

Chicago, July 24, 1858, 

Hon. A. LixcoLN — Dear Sir : Your note of this date. In which 
you inquire If It would be agreeable, to mc to make an arrangement 
to divide the time, and address the same audiences, duiing the 
present canvass, was handed me by Mr. Judd. Recent events 
have Interposed difficulties In the way of such an arrangement. 

I went to Springfield last week for the purpose of conferring 
Avith the Democratic State Central Committee upon the mode of 
con ducting the canvass, and with them, and under their advice, 
made a list of appointments covering the entire period until late in 



44 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

October. The people of the several localities have been notified of 
the times and places of the meetings. Those appointments have 
all been made for Democratic meetings, and arrangements have 
been made by which the Democratic candidates for Congress, for 
the legislature, and other offices, -will be present, and address the 
people. It is evident, therefore, that these various candidates, in 
connection with myself, will occupy the whole time of the day and 
evening, and leave no opportunity for other speeches. 

Beaidcs, there is another consideration which should be kept in 
mind. It has been suggested recently that an arrangement had 
been made to bring out a third candidate for the United States 
Senate, who. with yourself, should canvass the State in opposition 
to me, with no other purpose than to insure my defeat, by dividing 
the Democratic party for your benefit. If I should make this 
arrangement with you, it is more than probable that this other 
candidate, who has a common object wiih you, would desire to 
become a paity to it, and claim the right to speak from the same 
stand ; so that he and you, in concert, might be able to take the 
opening and closing speech in every case. 

I cannot refrain from expressing my surprise, if it was your 
original intention to invite such an arrangement, that you should 
have waited until after I had made my appointments, inasmuch as 
we were both here in Chicago together for several days after my 
arrival, and again at Bloomington, Atlanta, Lincoln, and Spring- 
field, where it was well known I went for the purpose of consulting 
with the State Central Committee, and agreeing upon the plan of 
the campaign. 

While, under these circumstances, I do not feel at liberty to 
make any arrangements which would deprive the Democratic 
candidates for Congress, State officers, and the legislature, from 
participating in the discussion at the various meetings designated 
by the Democratic State Central Committee, I will, in order to 
accommodate you as far as it is in my power to do so, take the 
responsibility of making an arrangement with you for a discui-sion 
between us at one proiniuent point in each Congressional District 
in the State, except the second and sixth districts, where we have 
both spoken, and in each of which cases you had the concluding 
speech. If agreeable to you, I will indicate the following places as 
those most suitable in the several Congn^ssional Districts at which 
we should speak, to wit : Freeport, Ottawa, Galesbuvg, Quincy, 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 45 

Alton, Jonosboro', and Charleston. I will confer with you at the 
earliest convenient opportunity in regard to the mode of conduct- 
ing the debate, the times of meeting at the several places, subject 
to the condition, that where appointments have already been made 
by the Democratic State Central Committee at any of those places, 
1 must insist upon you meeting me at the times specified. 

Very respectfully, your most obedient servant, 

S. A. DOUGLAS. 



Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 

Springfield, July 29, 1^58. 

Hon. S. A. Douglas — Dear Sir: Yours of the 24th, in relation 
to an arrangement to divide time, and address the same audiences, 
is received ; and, in apology for not sooner replying, allow me to 
say, that when I sat by you at dinner yesterday, I was not aware 
that you had answered my note, nor, certainly, that my own note 
had been presented to you. An hour after, I saw a copy of your 
answer in the Chicago Times, and, reaching home, I found the 
original awaiting me. Protesting that your insinuations of 
attempted unfairness on my part are unjust, and, with the hope 
that you did not very considerately make them, I proceed to reply. 
To your statement that " it has been suggested, recently, that an 
arrangement had been made to bring out a third candidate for the 
United States Senate, who, with yourself, should canvass the State 
in opposition to me," etc., I can only say that such suggestion must 
have been made by yourself, for, certainly, none such has been 
made by or to me, or otherwise, to my knowledge. Surely, you 
did not deliberately conclude, as you insinuate, that I was expecting 
to draw you into an arrangement of terms, to be agreed on by 
yourself, by which a third candidate and myself, " in concert, 
might be able to take the opening and closing speech in every 
case." 

As to your surprise that I did not sooner make the proposal to 
divide time with you, I can only say I made it as soon as I resolved 
to make it. I did not know but that such proposal would come 
from you ; I waited, respectfully, to see. It may have been well 
known to you that you went to Springfield for the purpose of 
agreeing on the plan of campaign ; but it was not so known to me. 



46 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

When your appointments were announced in the papers, extending 
only to the 21st of August, I, for the first time, considered it certain 
that you would make no proposal to me, and then resolved that, 
if my friends concurred, I would make one to you. As soon there- 
after as I could see and consult with friends satisfactorily, I did 
make the proposal. It did not occur to me that the proposed 
arrangement could derange your plans after the latest of your 
appointments already made. After that, there was, before the 
election, largely over two months of clear time. 

For you to say that we have already spoken at Chicago and 
Springfield, and that on both occasions I had the concluding 
speech, is hardly a fair statement. The truth rather is this : At 
Chicago, July 9, you made a carefully prepared conclusion on my 
speech of June 16th. Twenty-four hours after, I made a liasty 
conclusion on yours on the 9th. You had six days to prepare, and 
concluded on me again, at Bloomington, on the 16th. Twenty- 
four hours after, I concluded again on you at Springfield. In the 
mean time, jou had made another conclusion on me at Springfield, 
which I did not hear, and of the contents of which I knew nothing 
when I spoke ; so that your speech made in daylight, and mine at 
night, of the 17th, at Springfield, were both made in perfect 
independence of each other. The dates of making all these 
speeches will show, I think, that, in the matter of time for pre- 
paration, the advantage has all been on your side; and that 
none of the external circumstances have stood to my advantage 

I agree to an arrangement for us to speak at the seven places 
you have named, and at your own times, provided you name the 
times at once, so that I, as well as you, can have to myself the 
time not covered by the arrangement. As to the other details, 
I wish perfect reciprocity, and no more. I wish as much time 
as you, and that conclusions shall alternate. That is all. 
Your obedient servant, 

A. LINCOLN. 

P. S. As matters now stand, I shall be at no more of your 
exclusive meetings; and, for about a week from to-day, a letter 
from you will reach me at Springfield. A. L. 



OF ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 47 

Mr. Douglas to Mr. Lincoln. 

Bement, I'iatt Co., III., July 30, 1858. 
Dear Sir : Your letter, dated yesterday, accepting my proposi- 
tion for a joint discussion at one prominent point in each Congres- 
sional District, as stated in my previous letter, was received this 
morning. 

The times and places designated are as follows : — 

Ottawa, La Salle County August 21, 1858. 

Freeport, Stephenson County " 27, 

Jonesboro', Union Countj' September 15, 

Charleston, Coles County " 18, 

Galesburg, Knox County October 7, 

Quincy, Adams County " 13, 

Alton, Madison County " 15, 

I agree to your suggestion that we shall alternately open and 
close the discussion. I will speak at Ottawa one hour, you can 
reply, occupying an hour and a half, and I will then follow for half 
an hour. At Freeport, you shall open the discussion, and speak 
one hour, I will follow for an hour and a half, and you can then 
reply for half an hour. We will alternate in like manner in each 
successive place. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

S. A. DOUGLAS. 
Hon. A. Lincoln, Springfield, 111. 



Mr. Lincoln to Mr. Douglas. 

Springfield, July 31, 1858. 
Hon. S. A. Douglas — Dear Sir : Yours of yesterday, naming 
places, times, and terms, for joint disciussions between us, was 
received this morning. Although, by the terms, as you propose, 
you take four openings and closes to my three, I accede, and thus 
close the arrangement. I direct this to you at Hillsboro', and shall 
try to have both your letter and this appear in the Journal and 
Register of Monday morning. 

Your obedient servant, 

A. LINCOLN. 



48 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



CHAPTER V. 



The Senatorial Debates — Position of the Candidates — The Second Debate, at 
Freeport — Arguments of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Douglas. 



The contest that ensued upon the acceptance of Mr. Lincoln's 
challenge, was certainly one of the most remarkable in our 
political history. The position of the two men, the circum- 
stances under which they appeared before the public, and the 
peculiar uncertainty which seemed to hang over political aflCiirs, 
all combined to rivet the attention of the country ujiou this 
extraordinary struggle. 

Both men were remarkable for great native ability, and for 
having, by their own energy, placed themselves in the foremost 
ranks of their respective parties. One of them, Judge Doug- 
las, is far more than an ordinary man in his own range of intel- 
lect. He is one of the ablest, most unscrupulous, and daring 
of politicians. Not by any means possessed of the qualities of a 
statesman, he yet has great power as a popular leader and a 
partisan advocate. The other, Mr. Lincoln, with much less 
of the politician and partisan, less adroit and cunning, has yet, 
by the clearness of his logical intellect, the sagacious honesty of 
his character, and the persistence and energy with which he 
enforces ideas and carries out his purpose, won for himself a 
strong and abiding hold in the heart and faith of the people. 

The Democratic Senator had returned from Washington, 
fresh from his Lecompton fight, — a fight induced by policy, 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 49 

and not principle, on his part. He stood before the people 
black with broken pledges, and disgraced by the violated com- 
pacts which, fur his own mad ambition, he had broken. It was 
necessary to meet and expose his duplicity and treachery. Weil 
'and ably was it performed by Mr. Lincoln. 

The second of these debates, held at Freeport, August 27, is 
generally esteemed the most masterly of these expositions of 
the principles of both the great parties, as represented by 
Messrs. Lincoln and Douglas. It is herewith inserted entire. 



SECOND JOINT DEBATE, AT FREEPORT. 

MR. Lincoln's spefxii, august 27, 1858. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : On Saturday last, Judge Douglas and 
myself first met in public discussion. He spoke one hour, I an 
hour and a half, and he replied for half an hour. The order is 
now reversed. I am to speak an hour, he an hour and a half, and 
then I am to reply for half an hour. I propose to devote myself 
during the first hour to the scope of what was brought within the 
range of his half hour's speech at Ottawa. Of course there was 
brought within the scope in that half hour's speech something of 
his own opening speech. In the course of that opening argument, 
Judge Douglas proposed to me seven distinct interrogatories. la 
my speech of an hour and a half, I attended to some other parts 
of his speech, and incidentally, as I thought, answered one of the 
interrogatories then. I then distinctly intimated to him that I 
■would answer the rest of his Interrogatories on condition only that 
he should agree to answer as many for me. He made no intimation 
at the time of the proposition, nor did he in his reply allude at all 
to that suggestion of mine. I do him no injustice in saying that he 
occupied at least half of his reply in dealing with me as though I 
liad refused to answer his interrogatories. I now propose that I 
will answer any of the interrogatories upon condition that he will 
answer questions from me not exceeding the same number. I give 
him an opportunity to respond. The Judge remains silent. I now 
say that I will answer his interrogatories whether he answers mine 

4 



50 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

or not ; and that, after I have done so, I shall propound mine 
to b.im. 

I hive supposed myself, sinc-c the orginization of the Republi- 
can party at Bloomington, in May, 1856, bound as a party man by 
the platforms of the party, then and since. If in any interrogato- 
ries which I shall answer I go beyond the scope of what is within 
these platforms, it will be perceived that no one is responsible but 
myself. 

Having said thus much, I will take up the Juilge's interroga- 
tories as I find them printed in the Chicago Times, and answer 
them seriatim. In order that there may be no mistake about it, I 
have copied the interrogatories in writing, and also my answers to 
them. The first one of these interrogatories is in these words : — 

Question I. I desire to know whether Lincoln to-day stands, 
as he did in 1854, in favor of the unconditional repeal of the Fugi- 
tive Slave Law ? 

Ansicer. I do not now, nor ever did, stand in favor of the un- 
coudjional repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. 

Q. 2. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to- 
day, as he did in 1854, against the admission of any more slave 
States into the Union, even if the people want them ? 

A. I do not now, nor ever did, stand pledged against the admitf- 
sion of any more slave States into the Union. 

Q. 3. I want to know whether he stands pledged against 
the admission of a new State into the Union with such a constitu- 
tion as the people of that State may see fit to make ? 

A. I do not stand pledged against the admission of a new 
State into the Union with such a Constitution as the people of that 
State may see fit to make. 

Q. 4. I want to know whether he stands to-day pledged to 
the aboliiiou of slavery in the Dis^trict of Columbia '? 

A. I do not stand to-day pledged to the abolition of slavery in 
the District of Columbia. 

Q. 5. I desire him to answer whether he stands pledged to 
the prohibition of the slave-trade between the different States ? 

A. I do not stand pledged to the prohibition of the shive-ti-ade 
between the different States. 

Q. 6. I desire to know whether he stands pledged to pro- 
hibit slavery in all the territories of the United States, north as 
•well as south of the JMissouri Compromise line ? 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 51 

A. I am impliedly, if not expressly, pledged to a belief in the 
riff'il and dut;/ of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United 
Sfates territories. 

Q. 7. I desire him to answer whether 'he is opposed to the 
aciiiii.-ition of any new territory unless slavery is first prohibited 
therein ? 

A. I am not generally opposed to honest acfjuisition of territo- 
ry ; and, in any given case, I would or -would not oppose suc-h 
acq-.isition, aceordingly as I might think such acquisition would 
or would not aggravate the slavery question among ourselves. 

Now, my friends, it will be perceived upon an examination of 
these questions and answers, that so for I have only answered that 
I was not pledrjcd to this, that, or the other. The Judge has not 
framed his interrogatories to ask me anything more than this, and 
I have answered in strict accordance with the interrogatories, and 
have answered truly that I am not pledged at all upon any of the 
points to which I have answered. But I am not disposed to hang 
upon the exact form of his interrogatory. I am rather disposed to 
take up at least some of these questions, and state what 1 really 
think upon them. 

As to the first one, in regard to the Fugitive Slave Law, I have 
never hesitated to say, and I do not now hesitate to say, that I 
think, under the Constitution of the United States, the people of 
the Southern States are entitled to a congressional Fugitive Slave 
Law. Having said that, I have had nothing to say in regard to the 
existing Fugitive Slave Law, further than that I think it should 
have been framed so as to be free frou some of the objections that 
pertain to it, without lessening its efficiency. And inasmuch as we 
are not now in an agitation in regard to an alteration or modifica- 
tion of that law, I would not be the man to Introduce it as a 
new subject of agitation upon the general question of slavery. 

In regard to the other question, of whether I am pledged to the 
admission of any more slave States into the Union, I state to you 
very frankly, that I would be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a 
position of having to pass upon that question. I should be exceed- 
ingly glad to know that there would never be another slave State 
admitted into the Union ; but I must add, that if slavery shall be 
kept out of the Territories during the territorial existence of any 
one given Territory, and then the people shall, having a fair chance 
and a clear field, when they come to adopt the Constitution, do 



52 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

BU'li an pxtraordinary thing as to adopt a slave Constitution, nnin- 
fluenceil by the actual presence of the institution among t hem, 1 see 
no alternative, "if we own the country, but to admit them into the 
Union. 

The third interrogatory is answered by the answer to the second, 
it being, as I conceive, the same as the second. 

The fourth one is in regard to the abolition of slaverj' in the 
District of Columbia. In relation to that, I have my mind very dis- 
tinctly made up. I should be exceedingly glad to see slavery abol- 
ished in the District of Columbia. I believe that Congress pos- 
sesses the constitutional power to abolish it. Yet, as a member of 
Congress, I should not, with my present views, be In favor of 
endeavoring to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, unless it 
would be upon these conditions : First, that the abolition should 
be gradual. Second, that it should be on a vote of a majori<y of 
qualified voters in the District; and ^/u>(/, that compensation should 
be made to unwilling owners. With these three conditions, I con- 
fess I would be exceedingly glad to see Conofress abolish slavery in 
the District of Columbia, and, in the language of Ileoiy CLiy, 
" sweep from our capital that foul blot upon our nation." 

In regard to the fifth interrogatory, I must say here, that, as to 
the question of the abolition of the slave-trade between the difier- 
eiit States, I can truly answer, as 1 have, that I am pledged to 
nothing about it. It is a subject to which 1 have not given that 
mature consideration that would make me feel authorized to state a 
position so as to hold myself entirely bound by it. In other words, 
that question has never been prominently enough before me to in- 
duce me to investigate whether we really have the constitutional 
power to do it. I could investigate it if I had sufficient time, to 
bring myself to a conclusion upon that subject ; but I have not done 
so, and I say so frankly to you here, and to Judge Douglas. I must 
say, however, that if I should be of opinion that Congress does 
possess the constitutional power to abolish the slave-trade amonor 
the diQerent States, I should still not be in Aivor of the exercise of 
that power unless upon some conservative principle, as I conceive 
it akin to what I have said in relation to the abolition of slavery in 
the District of Columbia. 

My answer as to whether I desire that slavery should be prohib- 
ited in all the territories of the United States, is full and explicit 
within itself, and cannot be made clearer by any comments of mine. 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 53 

So I suppose in regard to the question whether I am opposed to the 
acquisition of any more territory, unless slavery is first prohibited 
therein, my answer is such that I could add nothing by way of 
illustration, or making myself better understood, than the answer 
which I have placed in writing. 

Now in all this, the Judge has me, and he has me on the record. 
I suppose he had flattered himself that I was really entertaining 
one set of opinions for one place, and another set for another place, 
— that I was afraid to say at one place what I uttered at another. 
What I am saying here I suppose I say to a vast audience as strongly 
tending to Abolitionism as any audience in the State of Illinois, 
and 1 believe I am saying that, which, if it would be offensive to 
any persons and render them enemies to myself, would be offensive 
to persons in this audience. 

I now proceed to propound to the Judge the interrogatories, so 
far as I have framed them. I will bring forward a new instalment 
when I get them ready. I will bring them forward now, only 
reaching to number four. 

The first one is : — 

Question 1. If the people of Kansas shall, by means entirely 
unobjectionable in all other respects, adopt a State Constitution, 
and ask admission into the Union under it, before they have the 
requisite number of inhabitants according to the English bill, — 
some ninety-three thousand, — will you vote to admit them ? 

Q. 2. Can the people of a United States Territory, in any law- 
ful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, ex- 
clude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a State 
Constitution ? 

Q. 3. If the Supreme Court of the United States shall decide 
that States cannot exclude slavery from their limits, are you in 
favor of acquiescing in, adopting, and following such decision as a 
rule of political action ? 

Q. 4. Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory, in dis- 
regard of how such acquisition may afiect the nation on the slavery 
question ? 

As introductory to these interrogatories which Judge Douglas pro- 
pounded to me at Ottawa, he read a set of resolutions which he 
said Judge Trumbull and myself had participated In adopting, in 
the first Kepublican State Convention, held at Springfield, In Octo- 
ber, 1854. He insisted that I and Judge Trumbull, and perhaps the 



54 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

entire Republican party, were responsible for the doctrines contained 
in the set of resolutions which he read, and I understand that it was 
from that set of resolutions that he deduced the interrogatories 
•which he propounded to me, using these resolutions as a sort 
of authority for propounding those questions to me. Now I say here, 
to-day, that I do not answer his interrogatories because of their 
springing at all from that set of resolutions which he read. I an- 
swered them because Judge Douglas saw fit to ask them. I do 
not now, nor never did, recognize any responsibility upon myself 
in that set of resolutions. When I replied to him on that occasion, 
I assured him that I never had anything to do with them. I i-epeat 
here, to-day, that I never, in any possible form, had anything to do 
with that set of resolutions. It turns out, I believe, that those res- 
olutions were never passed in any Convention held in Springfield. It 
turns out that they were never passed at any Convention or any 
public meeting that I had any part in. I believe it turns out, in 
addition to all this, that there was not, in the fall of 1854, any Con- 
vention holding a session in Springfield, calling itself a Republican 
State Convention ; yet it is true there was a Convention, or assem- 
blage of men calling themselves a Convention, at Springfield, that 
did pass some resolutions ; but so little did I really know of the 
proceedings of that Convention, or what set of resolutions they had 
passed, though having a general knowledge that there had been 
such an assemblage of men there, that when Judge Douglas read 
the resolutions, I really did not know but they had been the resoiu 
tions passed then and there. I did not question that they were the 
resolutions adopted ; for I could not bring myself to suppose that 
Judge Douglas could say what he did upon this subject without 
knowing that it was true. I contented myself, on that occasion, 
with denying, as I truly could, all connection with them, not deny- 
ing or aflirming whether they were passed at Springfield. Now it 
turns out that he had got hold of some resolutions passed at some 
Convention or public meeting in Kane county. I wish to say here, 
that I don't conceive that in any fair and just mind this discovery 
relieves me at all. I had just as much to do with the Convention 
in Kane county as that at Springfield. I am just as much responsi- 
ble for the resolutions at Kane county as those at Springfield, tho 
amount of the responsibility being exactly nothing in either case ; 
no more than there would be in regard to a set of resolutions 
passed in the moon. 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 55 

I allude to this extraordinary matter in this canvass for some fur- 
ther purpose than anything yet advanced. Judge Douglas did not 
make his statement upon that occasion as matters that he believed 
to be true, but he stated them roundly as beinr/ true, in such form 
as to pledge his veracity for their truth. AYhen the whole 
matter turns out as it does, and when we consider who Jud^'e 
Douglas is, — that he is a distinguished Senator of the United States, 
— that he has served nearly twelve years as such,— that his charac- 
ter is not at all limited as an ordinary Senator of the United 
States, but that his name has become of world-wide renown — it is 
most extraordinary that he should so far forget all the suggestions of 
justice to an adversary, or of prudence to himself, as to venture 
upon the assertion of that which the slightest investigation would 
have shown him to be wholly false. I can only account for his 
having done so upon the supposition that that evil genius which has 
attended him through his lite, giving to him an apparent astonishing 
prosperity, such as to lead very many good men to doubt there 
being any advantage in virtue over vice, — I say I can only account 
for it on the supposition that that evil genius has at last made up 
its mind to forsake him. 

And I may add that another extraordinary feature of the Judge's 
conduct in this canvass — made more extraordinary by this inci- 
dent — is, that he is in the habit, in almost all the speeches he 
makes, of charging falsehood upon his adversaries, myself and others. 
I now ask whether he is able to find in anything that Judge Trum- 
bull, for instance, has said, or in anything that I have said, a justi- 
fication at all compared with what we have, in this instance, for that 
sort of vulgarity. 

I h.i ve been in the habit of charging as a matter of belief on my 
part, that, in the introduction of the Nebraksa bill into Congress, 
there was a conspiracy to make slavery perpetual and national 
I have arranged, from time to time, the evidence which establishes 
and proves the truth of this charge. I recurred to this charge at 
Ottawa. I shall not now have time to dwell upon it at very great 
length; but, inasmuch as Judge Douglas in his reply of half "an 
hour, made some points upon me in relation to it, I j^ropose noticing 
a few of them. 

The Judge insists that, In the first speech I made, in which I very 
distinctly made that charge, he thought for a good while I was In fun ! 
— that I was playful, — that I was not sincere about it, — and that 



56 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

he only grew angry and somewhat excited wlien be found lliat I 
insisted upon it as a matter of earnestness. He says he character- 
ized it as a falsehood as far as I implicated his moral character in 
that transaction. Well, I did not know, till he presented that view, 
that I had implicated his moral character. He is very much in the 
habit, when he argues me up into a position I never thought of 
occupying, of very cosily saying he has no doubt Lincoln is "con- 
scientious" in saying so. He should remember that I did not know 
but what he was altogether " conscientious " in that matter. 
I can conceive it possible for men to conspire to do a good thing, 
and I really find nothing in Judge Douglas's course or arguments 
that is contrary to or inconsistent with his belief of a conspiracy to 
nationalize and spread slavery as being a good and blessed thing, 
and so I hope he will understand that I do not at all question but 
that in all this matter he is entirely " conscientious." 

But to draw your attention to one of the points I made in this 
case, beginning at the beginning. When the Nebraska bill was 
introduced, or a short time afterward, by an amendment, I believe, 
it was provided that it must be considered " the true intent and 
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any State or ter- 
ritory, or to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof 
perfectly free to form and regulate their own domestic institutions 
in their own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United 
States." I have called his attention to the fact that when he and 
some others began arguing that they were giving an increased de- 
gree of liberty to the people in the territoi'ies over and above what 
they formerly had on the question of slavery, a question was raised 
whether the law was enacted to give such unconditional lib- 
erty to the people ; and to test the sincerity of this mode of argu- 
ment, Mr. Chase, of Ohio, introduced an amendment, in which he 
made the law — if the amendment were adopted — expressly de- 
clare that the people of the territory should have the power to 
exclude slavery if they saw fit. I have asked attention also to the 
fact that Judge Douglas and those who acted with him, voted that 
amendment down, notwithstanding it expressed exactly the thmg 
they said was the true intent and meaning of the law. I have called 
attention to the fa'-t that in subsequent times, a decision of the Su- 
preme Court has been made, in which it has been declared that a 
territorial legislature has no constitutional right to exclude slavery. 
And I have argued and said that for men who did Intend that the 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 57 

people of the territory should have the right to exclude slavery ab- 
solutelv and unconditionally, the voting <lown ofCha c's amendment 
is wholly inexplicable. It is a puzzle, — a riddle. But I have said 
that with men who did look forward to such a decision, or who had 
it in contemplation, that such a decision of the Supreme Court 
would or might be made, the voting down of that amendment would 
be perfectly rational and intelligible. It would keep Congress from 
coming in collision with the decision when it was made. Anybody 
can conceive that if there was an intention or expectation that such 
a decision was to follow, it would not be a very desirable party atti- 
tude to get into for the Supreme Court, — all or nearly all its mem- 
bers belonging to the same party, — to decide one way, when the 
party in Congress had decided the other way. Hence it would be 
very rational for men expecting such a decision, to keep the niche 
in that law clear for it. After pointing this out, I tell Judge 
Douglas that it looks to me as though here was the reason why 
Chase's amendment was voted down. I tell him that as he did it, 
and knows why he did it, if it was done for a reason different from 
this, he knows what that reason was, andean tell us what it was. I tell 
him, also, it will be vastly more satisfactory to the country for him 
to give some other plausible, intelligible reason whj it was voted 
down than to stand upon his dignity and call people liars. Well, 
on Saturday, he did make his answer, and what do you think 
it was? He says if I had only taken upon myself to tell the whole 
truth about that amendment of Chase's, no explanation would have 
been necessary on his part, — or words to that effect. Now, I say 
here, that I am quite unconscious of having suppressed anything 
material to the case, and I am very frank to admit if there is any 
sound reason other than that which appeared to me material, it is 
quite fair for him to present it. What reason does he propose ? 
That when Chase came forward with his amendment, expressly au- 
thorizing the people to exclude slavery from the limits of every ter • 
ritory. Gen. Cass proposed to Chase, if he (Chase) would add to 
his amendment that the people should have the power to introduce 
or exclude, they would let it go. This is substantially all of his 
reply. And because Chase would not do that, they voted his 
amendment down. Well, it turns out, I believe, upon examina- 
tion, that General Cass took some part in the little running debate 
upon that amendment, and then ran away and. did not vote on it at 
all. Is not that the fact ? So confident, as I think, was General 



58 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Cass that there was a snake somewhere about, he chose to run away 
from the whole thing. This is an inference I draw from the fact 
that, though he took part in the debate, his name does not appear 
in the ajes and noes. But does Judge Douglas's reply amount to a 
satisfactory answer ? [Cries of " yes," " yes," and " no," " no."] 
There is some little difference of opinion here. But I ask atten- 
tion to a few more views bearing on the question of whether it 
amounts to a satisfactory answer. The men who were determined 
that that amendment should not get into the bill, and spoil the place 
where the Dred Scott decision was to come in, sought an excuse to 
get rid of it somewhere. One of these ways, — one of these excuses, 
— was to ask Chase to add to his proposed amendment a provision 
that the people might introduce slavery if thoy wanted to. They 
very well knew Chase would do no such thing, — that Mr. Chase 
was one of the men differing from them on the broad principle of 
his insisting that freedom was hetter than slavery, — a man who 
would not consent to enact a law, penned with his own hand, by 
"which he was made to recognize slavery on the one hand and lib- 
erty on the other as preciseb/ equal ; and when they insisted on his 
doing this, they very well knew they insisted on that wliich he 
would not for a moment think of doing, and that they were only 
bluffing him. I believe (I have not, since he made his answer, had 
a chance to examine the journals or Congressional Globe, and there- 
fore speak from memory) — I believe the state of the bill at that 
time, according to parliamentary rules, Avas such that no member 
could propose an additional amendment to Chase's amendment. I 
rather think this is the truth, — the Judge shakes his head. Very 
well. I would like to know, then, if iheij wanted Chase's amend- 
ment Jixed over, loluj somebody elxe could not offer to do it ? If they 
wanted it amended, why did they not offer the amendment ? Why 
did they stand there taunting and quibbling at Chase ? Why did 
they not put it in themselves ? But to put it on the other ground ; 
suppose that there was such an amendment offered, and Chase's was 
an amendment to an amendment; until one is disposed of by par- 
liamentary law, you cannot pile another on. Then all these gentle- 
men had to do was to vote Chase's on, and then in the amended 
form in which the whole stood, add their own amendment to it if 
they wanted to put it in that shape. This was all they were obliged 
to do, and the ayes and noes show that there were thirty-six who 
voted it down, against ten who voted in favor of it. The thirty-six 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 59 

held entire sway and control. They could in some form or other 
have put that bill in the exact shape they wanted. If there was a 
rule preventing their amending it at the time, they could pass that, 
and then Chase's amendment being merged, put it in the shape they 
wanted. They did not choose to do so, but they went into a quibble 
with Chase to get him to add what they knew he would not add, 
and because he would not, they stand upon that flimsy pretext for 
voting down what they argued was the meaning and intent of their 
own bill. They left room thereby for this Died Scott deci>iori, 
which goes very far to make slavery national throughout the United 
States. 

I pass one or two points I have because my time will very foon 
expire, but I must be allowed to say that Judge Douglas recuiv 
again, as he did upon one or two other occasions, to the enormify of 
Lincoln, — an insignificant individual like Lincoln, — upon his ipse 
dixit charging "a conspiracy upon a large number of members of 
Congress, the Supreme Court, and two Presidents, to nationalize 
slavery. I want to say that, in the first place, I have made no 
charge of this sort upon my ipse dixit. I have only arrayed the 
evidence tending to prove it, and presented it to the understanding 
of others, saying vhat I think it proves, but giving you the means 
of judging whether it proves it or not. This is precisely what I 
have done. I have not placed it upon my ?/)se d/xiV at all. On this 
occasion, I wish to recall his attention to a piece of evidence which 
I brought forward at Ottawa on Saturday, showing ihat he had 
made substantially the same charge against substantially the same 
persons, excluding his dear self from the category. I ask him to 
give some attention to the evidence which I brought forwjird, that 
he himself had discovered a "fatal blow being struck" against the 
light of the people to exclude slavery from their limits, which fatal 
blow he assumed as in e^vidence in an article in the Washington 
Union, published " by authority." I ask by whose authority ? lie 
discovers a similar or identical provision in the Lecompton Consti- 
tution. Made by whom ? The framers of that Constitution. Ad- 
vocated by whom? By all the members of the party in the nation, 
who advocated the introduction of Kansas into the Union under the 
Lecompton Constitution. 

I have asked his attention to the evidence that he arrayed to 
prove that such a fatal blow was being struck, and to the facts which 
he brought forward in support of that charge, — being identical with 



60 LIFE AND PUBLIC SER\aCES 

the one which he thinks so villainous in me. He pointed it not at 
a newspaper editor merely, but at (he President and his Cabinet, 
and the members of Congress advocating the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion and those framing that ihstrument. I must again be permitted 
to remind him, that although my ipse dixit may not be as great as 
his, yet it somewhat reduces the force of his calling my attention to 
the enormity of my making a like charge against him. 
Go on, Judge Douglas. 



MR. DOUGLAS S SPEECH. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : The silence with which you have listen- 
ed to Mr. Lincoln, during his hour, is creditable to this vast audi- 
ence, composed of men of various political parties. Nothing is 
more honorable to any large mass of people assembled for the pur- 
pose of a fair discussion, than that kind and respectful attention 
that is yielded not only to your political friends, but to those who 
are opposed to you in politics. 

I am glad that at last I have brought Mr. Lincoln to the conclu- 
sion that he had better define his position on certain political ques- 
tions to which I called his attention at Ottawa. He there showed 
no disposition, no inchnation, to answer them. I did not present 
idle (pjestions for him to answer merely for my gratification. I laid 
the tbundation for those interrogatories by showing that they consti- 
tuted the platform of the party whose nominee he is for the Senate. 
I did not presume that I had the right to catechise him as I saw 
proper, unless I showed that his party, or a majority of it, stood upon 
the platform and were in favor of the jji-opositions upon which my 
questions were based. I desired simply to know, inasmuch as he 
had been nominated as the first, last, and only choice of his party, 
whether he concurred in the platform which that party had adopted 
for its government. In a few moments I will proceed to review 
the answers which he has given to these interrogatories ; but in or- 
der to relieve his anxiety I will first respond to these which he has 
presented to me. Mark you, he has not presented interrogatories 
which have ever received the sanction of the party with which I am 
acting, and hence he has no other foundation for them tbau his own 
curiosity. 

First, he desires to know if the people of Kansas shall form a 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 61 

Constitution by means entirely proper and unobjectionable, and ask 
admission into the Union as a State, before they haA-e the requisite 
population for a member of Congress, whether I -will vote for that 
admission. Well, now, I regret exceedingly that he did not answer 
that interrogatory himself before he put it to me, in order that we 
might understand, and not be left to infer, on which side he is. Mr, 
Trumbull, during the last session of Congress, voted from the be- 
ginning to the end against the admission of Oregon, although a free 
State, because she had not the requisite population for a member of 
Congress. Mr. Trumbull would not consent, under any circum- 
stances, to let a State, free or slave, come into the Union until it 
had the re(juisite population. As Mr. Trumbull is in the field, 
fighting for Mr. Lincoln, I would like to have Mr. Lincoln answer 
his own question, and tell me whether he is fighting Trumbull on 
that issue or not. But I will answer his question. In reference to 
Kansas, it is my opinion, that as she has population enough to con- 
stitute a slave State, she has people enough for a free State. I will 
not make Kansas an exceptional case to the other States of the 
Union. I hold it to be a sound rule of universal application to re- 
quire a territory to contain the requisite population for a member 
of Congress, belbre it is admitted as a State into the Union. I 
made that proposition in the Senate in 1856, and I renewed it dur- 
ing the last session, in a bill providing that no territory of the 
United States should form a constitution and apply for admission, 
until it had the requisite population. On another occasion I pro- 
posed that neither Kansas, nor any other territory, should be ad- 
mitted until it had the requisite population. Congress did not 
adopt any of my propositions containing this general rule, but did 
make an exception of Kansas. I will stand by that exception. 
Either Kansas must come in as a free State, with whatever popula- 
tion she may have, or the rule must be applied to all the other ter- 
ritories alike. I therefore answer at once, that it having been de- 
cided that Kansas has people enough for a slave State, I hold that 
she has enough for a free State. I hope Mr. Lincoln is satisfied 
with my answer ; and now I would Hke to get his answer to his own 
interrogatory, — whether or not he will vote to admit Kansas before 
she has the ve(|uisite population. I want to know whether he will 
vote to admit Oregon before that territory has the recpiisite popu- 
lation. Mr. Trumbull will not, and the same reason that connnits 
Mr. Trumbull against the admission of Oregon, commits him against 



62 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Kansas, even if she should apply for admission as a free State. If 
there is any sincerity, any truth, in the argument of Mr. Trumbull 
in the Senate, against the admission of Oregon, because .she had not 
93,420 people, although ber population was larger than that of 
Kansas, he stands pledged against the admission of both Oregon 
and Kanslh until they have 93,420 inhabitants. I would like Mr. 
Lincoln to answer this question. I would like him to take his own 
medicine. If he differs with Mr. Trumbull, let him answer his ar- 
gument against the admission of Oregon, instead of poking ques- 
tions at me. 

The next question propounded to me by Mr. Lincoln is, can 
the people of a territory, in any lawful way, against the wishes of 
any citizen of the L'nited States, exclude slavery from their limits 
prior to the formation of a State constitution ? I answer emphat- 
ically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a hundred times from 
every stump in Illinois, that in my opinion the people of a territory 
can, by lawful means, exclude slavery from their limits prior to the 
formation of a State constitution. Mr. Lincoln knew that I had 
answered that question over and over again. He heard me argue 
the Nebraska bill on that principle all over the State in 1854, in 
1855, and in 1856, and he has no excuse for pretending to be in 
doubt as to my position on that question. It matters not what way 
the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract ques- 
tion, whether slavery may or may not, go into a territory under 
the Constitution, the people have the lawful means to introduce it or 
exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a 
day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police 
regulations. Those police regulations can only be established b}' 
the local legislature, and if the people are opposed to slavery, they 
will elect representatives to that body, who will, by unfriendly 
legislation, effectually prevent the introduction of it into their 
midst. If, on the contrary, they are for it, their legislation will 
favor its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of the 
Supreme Court may be on that abstract question, still, the right of 
the people to make a .'-lave territory, or a free territory, is perfect 
and complete under the Nebraska bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln deems 
my answer satisfactory on that point. 

In this conne(;tion, I will notice the chai-gc which he has intro- 
duced in relation to Mr. Chase's amendment. I thought that I had 
chased that amendment out of Mr. Lincoln's brain at Ottawa ; but, 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 63 

it seems, that still haunts his imagination, and he is not jet satisfied. 
I had supposed that he would be ashamed to press that question 
further. He is a lawyer, and has been a member of Congress, and 
his occupied his time, and amused you, by telling you about parlia- 
mentary proceedings. He ought to have known better than to 
'ry to palm off his miserable impositions upon this intelligent audi- 
ance. The Nebraska bill provitled that the legislative power, and 
authority of the said territory, should extend to all rightful subjects 
of legislation, consistent with the organic act, and the Constitution 
of the United States. It did not make any exception as to slavery, 
but gave all the power, that it was possible for Congress to give, 
without violating the Constitution, to the territorial legislature, with 
no exception or limitation on the subject of slavery at all. The 
language of that bill, which I have quoted, gave the full power and 
the lull authority over the subject of slavery, affirmatively and neg- 
atively, to introduce it or exclude it, so far as the Constitution of 
the United States would permit. What more could Mr. Chase give 
by his amendment? Nothing. He offered his amendment for the 
identical purpose for which Mr. Lincoln is using it, to enable dema- 
gogues in the country to try and deceive the people. 

His amendment was to this effect. It provided that the legisla- 
ture should have the power to exclude slavery : and General Cass 
suggested, "why not give the power to introduce as well as exclude ?" 
The answer was, they have the power already in the bill to do both. 
Chase was afraid his amendment would be adopted if he put the 
alternative proposition, and so make it fair both ways, but would 
not yield. He offered it for the purpose of having it rejected. He of- 
fered it, as he has himself avowed over and over again, simply to make 
capital out of it for the stump. He expected that it would be capital 
for small politicians in the country, and that they would make an 
effort to deceive the people with it; and hewa« not mistaked ; for 
Lincoln is carrying out the plan admirably. Lincoln knows that 
the Nebraska bill, without Chase's amendment, gave all the power 
which the Constitution would permit. Could (^ongress confer any 
more V Could Congress go beyond the Constitution of the country '? 
We gave all a full grant, with no exception in regard to slavery 
one way or the other. We left that question as we left all others, to 
be deciiled by the people for themselves, just as they pleased. I 
will not occujjy my time on this question. I have argued it before, 
all over Illinois. I have argtied it iu this beautiful city of Free- 



64 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

port, ; I have argued in the North, the South, the East, and tha 
West, avowing the same sentiments and the same prineiplos. I 
have not been afraid to avow my sentiments up here, for fear I 
•would be trotted down into Egypt. 

The third question which Mr. Lincoln presented, is, if the 
Supreme Court of the United States shall decide that a State of 
this Union cannot exclude slavery from Its own limits, will I submit 
to It ? I am amazed that Lincoln should ask such a question. (" A 
s(-hoolboy knows better,") Yes, a schoolboy does know better. Mr. 
Lincoln's object is to cast an imputation upon the Supreme Court. 
He knows that there never was but one man in America, claimmg 
any degree of intelligence or decency, who ever for a moment 
pretended such a thing. It is true that the Washington Union, in 
an article published on the 1 7th of last December, did put forth tliat 
doctrine, and I denounced the article on the 6oor of the Senate, in 
a speech which Mr. Lincoln now pretends was against the Presi- 
dent. The Union had claimed that slavery had a right to go into 
the free States, and that any provision in the Constitution or law s of 
the free States to the contrary were null and void. I denounced it 
in the Senate, as I said before, and I was the first man who did. 
Lincoln's friends, Trumbull, and Seward, and Hale and "WilKUi, 
and the whole Black Republican side of the Senate, were silent. 
They left it to me to denounce it. And what was the reply made 
to me on that occasion ? Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, got up and 
undertook to lecture me on the ground that I ought not to have 
deemed the article worthy of notice, and ought not to have rej)lled 
to it ; that there was not one man, woman or child south of the 
Potomac, in any slave State, who did not repudiate any such pre- 
tension. Mr. Lincoln knows that that reply was made on the spot, 
and yet now he asks this question. lie might as well ask me, 
suppose Mr. Lincoln should steal a horse, would I sanction it ; and 
it would be as genteel in me to ask him, in the event he stole a 
horse, what ought to be done with him. He casts an imputation 
upon the Supreme Court of the United States, by supposing that 
they would violate the Constitution of riie United States. I tell him 
that such a thing Is not possible. It would be an act of moral trea- 
son that no man on the bench could ever descend to. Mr. Lincoln, 
himself, would never in his partisan feelings, so far forget what was 
right, as to be guilty of such an act. 

The fourth question of Mr. Lincoln is, are you iu favor of 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 65 

acquiring additional territory, in disregard as to how such acquisi- 
tion may affect the Union on the slavery questions ? This question 
is very ingeniously and cunningly put. 

The Black Republican creed lays it down expressly, that under 
no circumstances shall we acquire any more territory unless slavery 
is first prohibited in the country. I ask Mr. Lincoln whether he is 
in favor of that proposition. Are you (addressing Mr. Lincoln) 
opposed to the acquisition of any more territory, under any circum- 
stances, unless slavei'y is prohibited in it ? That he does not like to 
answer. When I ask him whether he stands up to that article in 
the platform of his party, he turns, Yankee-lashion, and without 
answering it, asks me whether I am in favor of acquiring territory 
without regard to how it may affect the Union on the slavery 
question. I answer, that whenever it becomes necessary, in our 
growth and progress, to acquire more territory, that I am in favor 
of it, without reference to the question of slavery ; and when we 
have acquired it, I will leave the people free to do as they please, 
either to make it slave or free territory, as they prefer. It is idle to 
tell me or you that we have territory enough. Our fathers sup- 
posed that we had enough when our territory extended to the 
Mississippi River, but a few years' growth and expansion satisfied 
them that we needed more, and the Louisiana Territory, from the 
west branch of the Mississippi to the British Possessions, was ac- 
quired. Then we acquired Oregon, then California and New Mexico. 
"We have enough now for the present, but this is a young and a grow- 
ing nation. It swarms as often as a hive of bees, and as new swarms 
are turned out each year, there must be hives in which they 
can gather and make their honey. In less than fifteen years, if the 
same progress that has distinguished this country for the last fifteen 
years, continues, every foot of vacant land between this and the 
Pacific ocean, owned by the United States, will be occupied. Will 
you not continue to increase at the end of fifteen years as well as 
now ? I tell you, increase, and multiply, and expand, is the law of 
this nation's existence. You cannot limit this great Republic by 
mere boundary lines, saying, " thus far shalt thou go, aud no fur- 
ther." Any one of you gentlemen might as well say to a son 
twelve years old, that he is big enough, and must not grow any 
larger, and in order to prevent his growth put a hoop around him to 
keep him to his present size. What would be the result ? either 
the hoop must burst and be rent asunder, or the child must die. 



66 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

So it would be with this great nation. With our natural increase, 
growing wirh a rapidity unknown in any other part of the globe, 
with the tiile of emigration that is fleeing from despotism in the 
old world, to seek refuge in our own, there is a constant torrent 
pouring into this country that requires more land, more territory 
upon which to settle ; and just as fast as our interests and our destiny 
require additional territory in the North, in the South, or on the 
Islands of the ocean, I am for it, and when we acquire it, will leave 
the people, according to the Nebraska bill, free to do as they please 
on the subject of slavery and every other question. 

I trust now that Mr. Lincoln will deem himself answered 9JI his 
four points. He racked his brain so much in devising these four 
questions that he exhausted himself, and had not strength enough to 
invent the others. As soon as be is able to hold a council with his 
advisers, Lovejoy, Farnsworth, and Fred Douglass, he will frame 
and propound others. [" Good, good."] You Black Republicans, 
who say good, I have no doubt think that they are all good men. I 
have reason to recollect that some people in this country think that 
Fred Douglass is a very good man. The last time I came here to 
make a speech, while talking from the stand to 30U, people of Free- 
port, as 1 am doing to-day, I saw a carriage, and a magnificent one 
it was, drive up and take a position on the outside of the crowd ; a 
beautiful young lady was sitting on the box-seat, whilst Fred Doug- 
lass and her mother reclined inside, and the owner of the carriage 
acted as driver. I saw this in your own town. [ " AVhat of it V " ] 
All I have to say of it is this, that if you. Black Republicans, think 
that the negro ought to be on a social equality with your wives and 
daughters, and ride in a carriage with your wife, whilst you drive 
the team, you have perfect right to do so. I am told that one of 
Fred Douglass's kinsmen, another rich black negro, is now travelling 
in this part of the State making speeches for his friend Lincoln as 
the champion of black men. [•' What have you to say against it?"] 
All I have to say on that subject is, that those of you who believe 
that the negro is your equal and ought to be on an equality with 
you socially, politically, and legally, have a right to entertain those 
opinions, and of course will vote for Mr. Lincoln. 

I have a word to say on Mr. Lincoln's answer to the intei-roga- 
tories contained in my speech at Ottawa, and which he has pre- 
tended to reply to here to-day. Mr. Lincoln makes a great parade 
of the fact that I quoted a platform as having been adopteil by the 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 67 

Black Republican party at Sprinafield in 1854, which, it turns out 
Tvas adopted at another place. Mr. Lincoln loses sight of the thin^^ 
itself in his ecstasies over the mistake I made in stating the place 
where it was done. He thinks that that platform was not adopted 
on the right " spot." 

When I put the direct questions to JNIr. Lincoln to ascertain 
whether he now stands pledged to that creed, — to the unconditional 
repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, a refusal to admit any more slave 
States into the Union, even if the people want them, a determina- 
tion to apply the Wilmot Proviso, not only to all the territory Me 
now have, but all that we may hereafter acquire, he refused to 
answer, and his followers say, in excuse, that the resolutions upon 
which I based my interrogatories were not adopted at the " r'ujlit 
spot." Lincoln and his political friends are great on " ."yjo/s." In 
Congress, as a representative of this State, he declared the Mexican 
war to be unjust and infamous, and would not support it, or acknow- 
ledge his own country to be right in the contest, because he said 
that American blood was not shed on American soil, in the " rigid 
spot." And now he cannot answer the questions I put to him at 
Ottawa, because the resolutions I read were not adopted at the 
" riffht spot." It may be possible that I was led into an error as to 
the spot on which the resolutions I then read were proclaimed, but 
I was not and am not in error as to the fact of their forming the 
basis of the creed of the Republican party when that jiarty was first 
organized. I will state to you the evidence I had, and upon which 
I relied for my statement that the resolutions in question were 
adopted at Springfield on the 5th of October, 1854. Although I was 
aware that such resolutions had been passed in this district, and nearly 
all the northern Congressional Districts and County Conventions, I 
had not noticed whether or not they had been adopted by any State 
Convention. In 1856, a debate arose in Congress between Major 
Thomas L. Harris, of the Springfield District, and Mr. Norton, of 
the Joliet District, on political matters connected with our State, 
in the course of which. Major Harris quoted those resolutions as 
having been passed by the first Republican State Convention that 
ever assembled in Illinois. Iknew that Major Harris was remark- 
able for his accuracy, that he was a very conscientious and sincere 
man, and I also noticed that Norton did not question the accuracy 
of this statement. I therefore took it for granted that it was so, and 
the other day, when I concluded to use the resolutions at Ottawa, I 



68 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

•wrote to Charles H. Lanphier, editor of the State Register, at Spnng- 
fifld, calling his attention to them, telling him that I had been in- 
formed that Major Harris was lying sick at Springfield, and desiring 
him to call upon him and ascertain all the facts concerning the reso- 
lutions, the time and place where they were adopted. In reply, 
Mr. Lanphier sent me two copies of his paper, which I have htre. 
The first is a copy of the Stale Register, published at Springfield, 
Mr. Lincoln's own town, on the iCth of October, 1854, only eleven 
days after the adjournment of the Convention, from which I desire 
to read the following : — 

" During the lafe discussions in this city, Lincoln made a speech, 
to which Judijje Douglas replied. In Lincoln's speech he took the 
broad ground that, according to the Declaration of Independence, 
the whites and blacks are equal. From this he drew the conclusion, 
which he several times repeated, that the white man had no right 
to pass laws for the government of the black man without the nig- 
ger's consent. This speech of Lincoln's was heard and applauded 
by all the Abolitionists assembled in Springfield. So soon as Mr. 
Lincoln was done speakinjr, Mr. Codding arose and requested all 
the delegates to the Bhick Republican Convention to withdraw into 
the Senate chamber. They did so, and after long deliberation, they 
laid down the following Aboliiion platform as the platform on which 
they stood. We call the particular attention of all our readers to 
it." 

Then follows the identical platform, word for word, which I read 
at Ottawa. Now, that was published in Mr. Lincoln's own town, 
eleven days after the Convention was held, and it has remained on 
record up to this day never contradicted. * 

When I quoted the resolutions at Ottawa, and questioned Mr. 
Lincoln in relation to them, he said that his name was on the com- 
mittee that reported them, but he did not serve, nor did he think lit) 
served, because he was, or thought he was, in Tazewell county at 
the time the Convention was in session. He did not deny that the 
resolutions were passed by the Springfield Convention. lie did not 
know better, and evidently thought that they were, but afterwards 
his friends declared that they liad discovered that they varied ia 
some respects from the resolutions passed by that Convention. I 
have shown you that I had good evidence for believing that the 
resolutions had been passed at Springfield. Mr. Lincoln ought to 
have known better : but not a word is said about his ignorance on 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 69 

the subject, whilst I, notwithstanding the circumstances, am accused 
of/brgery. 

Now, I will show you that if I have made a mistake as to the place 
■where these resolutions were adopted, — and when I get down to 
Springfield, I will investigate the matter, and see whether or not I 
have, — that the principles they enunciate were adopted as the Black 
Republican platform [•' white, white"] in the various counties and 
Congressional Districts throughout the north end of the State in 
LS54. This platform was adopted in nearly every county that gave 
a Black Republican majority for the legislature in that year, and 
here is a man [pointing to Mr. Denio, who sat on the stand near 
Deacon Bross] who knows as well as any living man that it was the 
creed of the Black Republican party at that time. I would be will- 
ing to call Denio as a witness, or any other honest man belonging 
to that party. I will now read the resolutions adopted at the Rock- 
ford Convention on the 30th of August, 1854, which nominated 
Washburne for Congress. You elected him on the following plat- 
form : — 

" Resolved, That the continued and increasing aggressions of 
slavery in our country are destructive of the best rights of a free 
people, and that such aggressions cannot be successfully resisted 
without the united political action of all good men. 

" Resolved, That the citizens of the United States hold in their 
hands peaceful, constitutional, and efiicient remedy against the en- 
croachments of the slave power, the ballot-box, and, if that remedy 
is boldly and wisely applied, the principles of liberty and eternal 
justice will be established. 

" Resolved, That we accept this issue forced upon us by the slave 
power, and, in defence of freedom, will co-operate and be known 
as Republicans, pledged to the accomplishment of the following 
purposes : — 

" To bring the Administration of the Government back to the 
control of first principles ; to restore Kansas and Nebraska to the 
position of free Territories; to repeal and entirely abrogate the 
Fugitive Slave Law ; to restrict slavery to those State's in which it 
exists ; to prohibit the admission of any more slave States into the 
Union ; to exclude slavery from all the territories over which the 
General Government has exclusive jurisdiction, and to resist the 
acquisition of any more Territories unless the introduction of slavery 
therein forever shall have been prohibited. 



70 LIFE AND rUBLIC SERVICES 

" Reaolved, That in furtherance of these principles we will use 
Bucli constitutional and lawful means as shall seem best adapted to 
their accomplishment, and that we will support no man for ofEce 
un'Jer the General or State Government who is not positively com- 
mitted to the support of these principles, and whose personal 
character and conduct is not a guaranty that he is reliable, and 
shall abjure all party allegiance and ties. 

" Resolved, That we cordially invite persons of all former politi- 
cal parties whatever, in favor of the object expressed in the above 
resolutions, to unite with us in carrying them into effect." 

Well, you think that is a very good platform, do you not ? If 
you do, if you approve it now, and think it is all right, you will not 
join with those men Avho say that I libel you by calling these your 
principles, will jou? Now, Mr. Lincoln complains : Mr. Lincoln 
charges that I did you and him injustice by saying that this was 
the platform of your party. I am told that Washburne made; a 
speech in Galena last night, in which he abused me awfully for 
bringing to light this platform, on which he was elected to Congress. 
He thought that you had forgotten it, as he and Mr. Lincoln desires 
to. He did not deny but that you had adopted it, and that he had 
subscribed to and was pledged by it, but he did not think it was 
fair to call it up and remind the people that it was their platform. 

But I am glad to find that you are more honest in your abolition- 
ism than your leaders, by avowing that it is your platform, and right 
in your opinion. 

In the adoption of that platform, you not only declared that you 
would resist the admission of any more slave States, and work for 
the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, but you pledged yourselves 
not to vote for any man for State or Federal offices who was not 
committed to these principles. You were thus committed. Similar 
resolutions to those were adopted in your County Convention here; 
and now, with jour admissions that they are your platform and 
embody your sentiments, now as they did then, what do you think 
of Mr. Lincoln, your candidate for the U. S. Senate, who is at- 
tempting to dodge the responsibility of this platform, because it 
•was not adopted in the right spot. I thought that it was adopted 
in Springfield, but it turns out it was not, that it was adopted at 
Rockford, and in the various counties which comprise this Congres- 
sional District. When I get into the next district, I will show that 
the same platform was adopted there, and so on through the State, 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 71 

until I nail the responsibility of it upon the back of the Black Re- 
publican p u'ty throughout the State. 

A voice — " Couldn't you modify and call it brown ? " 
Mr. Douglas — Not a bit. I thouglit that you were becoming a 
little brown when your members in Congress vo^ed for the Critten- 
den-Montgomery bill, but since you have backed out from that 
position and gone back to Abolitionism, you are black and not 
brown. 

Gentlemen, 1 have shown you what your platform was in 1854. 
You still adhere to it. The sume platform was adopted by nearl}' 
all the counties whei-e the Black Republican party had a majority 
in 1854. I wish now to call your attention to th ^ action of your 
representatives in the legislature when they assembled together at 
Springfield. In the first place, you must remember that this was 
the organization of a new party. It is so declared in the resolutions 
themselves, which say that you are going to dissolve all old party 
tics and call the new party Republican. The old Whig party was 
to have its throat cut from ear to ear, and the Democratic party 
was to be annihilated and blotted out of existence, whilst in lieu of 
these parties the Black Republican party was to be organized on 
this Abolition platform. You know who the chief leaders were in 
breaking up and destroying these two great parties. Lincoln on 
the one hand and Trumbull on the other, being disappointed poli- 
ticians, and having retired or been driven to obscurity by an out- 
raged constituency because of their political sins, formed a scheme 
to abolitlonize the two parties and lead the old line Whigs and old 
line Democrats captive, bound hand and foot, into the Abolition 
camp. Giddings, Chase, Fred Douglass, and Lovejoy, were hei e to 
christen them whenever they were brought in. Lincoln went to 
■work to dissolve the old line Whig party. Clay was dead, and 
although the sod was not yet green on his grave, this man undertook 
to bring into disrepute those great Compromise measures of 1850, 
with which Clay and Webster w^ere identified. Up to 1854 the 
old Whig party and the Democratic party had stood on a common 
platform so far as this slavery question was concerned. You Whigs 
and we Democrats difi'ered about the bank, the tariff, distribution, 
the specie circular and the sub-treasury, but we agreed on this 
slavery question, and the true mode of preserving the peace and 
harmony of the Union. The Compromise measures of 1850 were 
introduced by Clay, were defended by Webster, and supported by 



72 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Cass, and were approved by Fillmore, and sanctioned by the Na- 
tional men of both parties. They constituted a common ])lank 
upon whieh both Whigs and Dcmoc-rats stood. In 1852 the Whij^ 
party, in its last National Convention at Baltimore, indorsed and 
approved these measures of Cla}', and so did the National Conven- 
tion of the Democratic party held that same year. Thus the old 
line Whigs and the old line Democrats stood pledged to the great 
principle of self-government, which guaranties to the people of each 
territory the right to decide the slavery question for themselves. 
In 1854, after the death of Clay and Webster, Mr. Lincoln, on the 
part of the Whigs, undertook to abolitionize the Whig party, by 
dissolving it, transferring the members into the Abolition camp, and 
making them train under Giddings, Fred Douglass, Lovejoy, Chase, 
Farnsworth, and other Abolition leaders. Trumbull undertook to 
dissolve the Democratic party by taking old Democrats into the Abo- 
lition camp. Mr. Lincoln was aided in his efforts by many leading 
Whigs throughout the State. Your member of Congress, Mr. Wash- 
burne, being one of the most active. Trumbull was aided by many 
renegades from the Democratic party, among whom were John 
Wentworth, Tom Turner; and others, with whom you are familiar. 

[Mr. Turner, who was one of the moderators, here interposed 
and said that he had drawn the resolutions which Senator Douglas 
had read.] 

IVIr. Douglas — Yes, and Turner says that he drew these resolu- 
tions. [" Hurra for Turner," " Hurra for Douglas."] That is 
right, give Turner cheers for drawing the resolutions if you approve 
them. If he drew those resolutions he will not deny that they are 
the creed of the Black Republican party. 

Mr. Turner — " They are our creed exactly." 

Mr. Douglas— And yet Lincoln denies that he stands on 
them. Mr. Turner says that the creed of the Black Republican 
party is the admission of no more slave States, and yet Mr. Lincoln 
declares that he would not like to be placed in a position where he 
would have to vote for them. All I have to say to friend Lincoln 
is, that I do not think there is much danger of his being placed in 
such a position. As Mr. Lincoln would be very sorry to be placed 
in such an embarrassing position, as to be obliged to vote on the ad- 
mission of any more slave States, I propose, out of mere kindness, 
to relieve him from any such necessity. 

When the bargain between Lincoln and Trumbull was completed 



OF ABRAHAM LTNCOLX. 73 

for abolitionizing the Whig and Democratic parties, they " spread " 
over the State, Lincoln still pretending to be an old line Whig, in 
order to " rope " in the Whigs, and Trumbull pretending to be as 
good a Democrat as he ever was, in order to coax the Demo:.Tat3 
over into the Abolition ranks. They played the part that '• decoy 
ducks " play down on the Potomac River. In that part of the 
country they make artificial ducks, and put them on the water in 
places where the wild ducks are to be found, for the purpose of 
decoying them. Well, Lincoln and Trumbull played the part 
of these " decoy ducks," and deceived enough old line Whigs and 
old line Democrats to elect a Black Republican legislature. When 
that legislature met, the first thing it did was to elect, as Sj.eaker of 
the House, the very man who is now boasting that he wrote the 
Abolition platform on which Lincoln will not stand. I want to 
know of Mr. Turner, whether or not, when he was elected, he was 
a good embodiment of Republican principles ? ' 

Mi. Turner — " I hope I was then, and am now." 
Ml Douglas — He swears that he hopes he was then, and is now. 
He wrote that Black Republican platform, and is satisfied with it 
now. I admire and acknowledge Turner's honesty. Every man of 
you know that what he says about these resolutions being the plat- 
form of the Black Republican party is true, and you also know that 
each one of these men who are shuffling, and trying to deny it, are 
only trying to cheat the people out of their votes for the purpose of 
deceiving them still more after the election. I propose to trace this 
thing a little further, in order that you can see what additional evi- 
dence there is to fasten this revolutionary platform upon the Black 
Republican party. When the legislature assembled, there was an 
United States Senator to elect in the place of Gen. Shields, and 
before they proceeded to ballot, Lovejoy insisted on laying down cer- 
tain principles by which to govern the party. It has been published 
to the world, and satisfactorily proven, that there was, at the time 
the alliance was made between Trumbull and Lincoln to abolition- 
ize the two parties, an agreement that Lincoln should tike Shield's 
jilace in the United States Senate, and Trumbull should have mine 
so soon as they could conveniently get rid of me. When Lincoln 
was beaten for Shield's place, in a manner I will refer to in a few 
minutes, he felt very sore and restive; his friends grumbled, and 
some of them came out and charged that the most infamous treach- 
ery had been practised against him ; that the bargain was that Lin- 



74 LIFE AXD PUBLIC SERVICES 

coin was to have had Shield's place, and Trumbull was to have waited 
for mine, but that Trumbull, having the control of a few abolition- 
ized Democrats, he prevented them from voting for Lincoln, thus 
keeping him within a few votes of an election, until he succeeded 
in ibrcing the party to drop him and elect Trumbull. Well, Trum- 
bull having cheated Lincoln, his friends made a fuss, and in order 
to keep them and Lincoln quiet, the party were obliged to come 
forward, in advance, at the last State election, and make a pledge 
that they would go for Lincoln, and nobody else. Lincoln could 
not be silenced in any other way. 

Now there are a great many Black T?epublicans of you who do 
not know this thing was done. [" White, white," and great clamor.] 
I wish to remind you that while Mr. Lincoln was speaking, there 
was not a Democrat vulgar and blackguard enough to interrupt 
him. But I know that the shoe is pinching you. I am clinching 
Lincoln now, and you are scared to death for the result. I have 
seen this thing before. I have seen men make appointments for 
joint discussions, and the moment their man has been heard, try to 
interrupt and prevent a fair hearing of the other side. I have 
seen your mobs before, and defy your wrath. [Tremendous ap- 
plause.] My friends, do not cheer, for I need my whole time. 
The object of the o[)position is to occupy my attention in order to 
prevent me from giving the whole evidence, and nailing this double 
dealing on the Black Republican party. As 1 have before said, Love- 
joy demanded a declaration of princi])les on the part of the Black 
Republicans of the legislature before going into an election for United 
States Senator. He offered the following preamble and i-esolutlons 
which I hold in my hand : — 

" Whereas, Human slavery is a violation of the principles of 
natural and revealed rights; and whereas, the fathers of the Revo- 
lution, fully imbued with the spirit of these principles, declared 
freedom to be the inalienable birthright of all men ; and whereas, llie 
preamble to the Constitution of the United States avers that th;it 
instrument was ordained to establish justice, and secure the blcs-ings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ; and whereas, in furtherance 
of the above principles, slavery was forever prohibited in the ci! I 
Northwest Tcrfitoiy,and more recently in all that territory lying west 
and north of the State of Missouri, by the act of the Federal Gov- 
ernment ; and whereas, the rej eal of the prohibition last referred to 
was contrary to the wishes of the people of Illinois, a violation of an 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 75 

imollod compact, long deemed sacred by the citizens of the United 
S-iites, and a wide departure from the nniform action of the (ien- 
eral Goverinnent in relation to the extension of slavery ; therefore, 

" Resolved, bij the House of Represenlalices, the Senate concurring 
therein., That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our llcp- 
resentativcs requested to introduce, if not otherwise introduced, and 
to vote for a bill to restore such prohibition to the aforesaid territo- 
ries, and also to extend a similar prohibition to all territory which 
now belongs to the United States, or which may hereafter come 
under their jurisdiction. 

" Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our 
Representatives requested, to vote against the admission of any 
S^ate into the Union, the constitution of which does not prohibit 
slavery, whether the territory out of which such State may have 
been formed shall have been acquired by conquest, treaty, purchase, 
or from original territory of the United States. 

" Resolved, That our Senators in Congress be instructed, and our 
Representatives requested, to introduce, and vflfte for a bill to repeal 
an act entitled ' an act respecting fugitives from justice, and per- 
sons escaping from the service of their masters ; ' and, failing in that, 
for such a modification of it as shall secure the right of habeas cor- 
pus, and trial by jury, before the regularly constituted authorities 
of the State, to all persons claimed as owing service or labor." 

Those resolutions were introduced by Mr. Lovejoy immediately 
preceding the election of Senator. They declared, first, that the 
Wilmot Proviso must be applied to all territory north of 36 deg. 30 
min. Secondly, that it must be applied to all territory south of 3G 
deg. 30 min. Thirdly, that it must be applied to all territory now 
owned by the United States ; and finally, that it must be apj'lled to 
all territory hereafter to be acquired by the United States. The 
next resolution declares that no more slave States shall be admitted 
into this Union, under any circumstances whatever, no matter 
whether they are formed out of territory now owned by us, or that 
•we may hereafter acquire, by treaty, by Congress, or in any manner 
whatever. The next resolution demands the unconditional repeal 
of the Fugitive Slave Law, although its unconditional repeal would 
leave no provision for carrying cut that clause of the Constitution 
of the United States, which guaranties the surrender of fugitives. 
If they could not get an unconditional repeal, they demanded that 
vlia.t law should be so modified as to make it as nearly useless as 



76 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

possible. Now, T want to show you who voted for these resolutions. 
When the vote was taken on the first resolution it was deciJcd in 
the affirmative, — yeas 4 1 , nays 32. You will find that this is a st7-ift 
party vote, between the Democrats on the one hand, and the Black 
Republicans on the other. [Cries of " White, white," and clamor.] 
I know your name, and always call things by their right name. 
Tlie point I wish to call your attention to, is this : that these reso- 
lutions were adopted on the 7th day of February, and that on the 
8th they went into an election for a United States Senator, and 
that day every man who voted for these resolutions, with but two 
exceptions, voted for Lincoln for the United States Senate. [" Give 
U3 their names."] I will read the names over to you if you want 
them, but I believe your object is to occupy my time. 

On the next resolution the vote stood, — yeas 33, nays 40, 
and on the third resolution, — yeas 35, nays 47. I wish to 
impress it upon you, that every man who voted for those reso- 
lutions, with but two exceptions, voted on the next day for Lin- 
coln for United States Senator. Bear in mind that the members 
who thus voted for Lincoln, were elected to the legislature, pledged 
to vote for no man for office under the State or Federal Govern- 
ment, who was not committed to this Black Republican platform. 
They were all so pledged. Mr. Turner, who stands by mc, and 
who then represented you, and who says that he wrote those reso- 
lutions, voted for Lincoln, when he was pledged not to do so unless 
Lincoln was in fivor of those resolutions. I now ask ]\Ir. Turner 
[turning to Mr. Turner], did you violate your pledge in voting for 
Mr. Lincoln, or did he commit himself to your platform before you 
cast your vote for him ? 

I could go through the whole list of names here, and show you 
thit all the Black Ptepublicans in the legislature, who voted for 
Mr. Lincoln, had voted on the day pre^ ious for these resolutions. 
For instance, here are the names of Sargent and Little, of Jo 
Daviess and Carroll, Thomas J. Turner of Stephenson, Lawrence 
of Boone, and M^IIenry, Swan of Lake, Pinekney of Ogle county, 
and Lyman of Winnebago. Thus you see every member from your 
Congressional District voted for Mr. Lincoln, and they were pledged 
not to vote for him unless he was committed to the doctrine of no 
more slave States, the prohibition of slavery in the territories, and 
the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. Mr. Lincoln tells you to-day 
that he is not pledged to any such doctrine. Either Mr. Lincoln 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 77 

was then committed to those propositions, or Mr. Turner violated 
his pledges to jou when he voted for him. Either Lincoln was 
pledged to ea(;h one of those propositions, or else every Black He- 
publican representative from this congressional district violated his 
pledge of honor to his constituents by voting for him. I ask you 
which horn of the dilemma will you take ? \7ill you hold Lincoln 
up to the platform of his party, or will you accuse every re[)reseu- 
tative you had in the legislature of violating his pledge of honor tO' 
his constituents ? Tberc is no escape for you. Either Mr. Lincoln 
Avas committed to those propositions, or your members violated their 
faith. Take either horn of the dilemma you choose. There is no 
dodging the question ; I want Lincoln's answer. He says he was 
not pledged to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, that he does not quite 
like to do it; he will not introduce a law to repeal it, but thinks 
there ought to be some law ; he does not tell what It ought to be ; 
upon the whole, he is altogether undecided, and don't know what 
to think or do. That is the substance of bis answer upon the repeal 
of the Fugitive Slave Law. I put the question to him distinctly, 
whether he Indorsed that part of the Black Republican platform 
which calls for the entire abrogation and repeal of the Fugitive 
Slave Law. He answers no ! that he does not indorse that ; but he 
does not tell what he is for, or what he will vote for. His answer 
is, in fact, no answer at all. Why cannot he speak out, and say 
what he is for and what he will do ? 

In regard to there being no more slave States, he is not pledged 
to that. He would not like, he says, to be put in a position where 
he would have to vote one way or another upon that question. I 
pray you, do not put him In a position that would embarrass him so 
much. Gentlemen, if he goes to the Senate, he may be put ia 
that position, and then which way will he vote ? 

[A voice — " How will you vote ? "] 

Mr. Douglas — I will vote for the admission of just such a State 
as by the form of their constitution the people show they want ; if 
they want slavery, they shall have it ; if they prohibit slavery, it 
shall '^e prohibited. They can form their institutions to please 
themselves, subject only to the Constitution ; and I for one stand 
ready to receive them into the Union. Why cannot your Black 
E-epubllcan candidates talk out as plain as that when they are ques- 
tioned ? 

I do not want to cheat any man out of his vote. No man is de- 



78 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

ceivofl in rejard to my principles if I have the power to express 
myself in terms explicit enough to convey my ideas. 

Mr. Lincohi made a speech when he was nominated for the 
United States Senate which covers all these Abolititm platforms. 
He there lays down a proposition so broad in its abolitionism as to 
cover the whole ground. 

" In my opinion it [the slavery agitation] will not cease until a 
crisis shall have been rea-ched and passed. ' A house divided 
against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot en- 
dure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the 
houi^e to fall, but I do expect it will cea?e to be divided. It will 
become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of 
slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ulti- 
mate extinction, or its advocates will push it forward till it shall 
become alike lawful in all the States, — old as well as new, North as 
well as South." 

There you find that Mr. Lincoln lays down the doctrine that 
this Union cannot endure divided as our fathers made it, with free 
and slave States. He says they must all become one tiling, or all 
the other ; that they must all be free or all slave, or else the Union 
cannot continue to exist. It being his opinion that to admit any 
more slave States, to continue to divide the Union into free and 
slave Stated, will dissolve it, I want to know of Mr. Lincoln whether 
he will vote for the admission of another slave State. 

He tells you the Union cannot exist unless the States are all free 
or all slave ; he tells you that he is opposed to making them all 
slave, and hence he is for making them all free, in order that the 
Union may exist; and yet he will not fay that he will not vote 
aizainst another slave State, knowing that the Union must be dis- 
solved if he votts for it. I ask you if that is fair dealing? The 
true intent and inevitable conclusion to be draAvn from his first 
Springfield speech is, that he is opposed to the admission of any 
more slave States under any circumstances. If he is so opposed, 
why not say so? If he believes this Union cannot endure divided 
into free and slave States, that they must all become free in order 
to save the Union, he is bound, as an honest man, to vote against 
any more slave States. If he believes it he is bound to do it. Show 
me that it is my duty in order to save the Union to do a particular 
act, and I will do it if the Constitution does not prohibit it. I am 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 79 

not for the dissolution of the Union under any circumstances. I will 
pursue no course of conduct that will "ive just cause for the disso- 
lution of the Union. The hope of the friends of freedom through- 
out the world rests upon the perpetuity of this Union. The down- 
trodden and oppressed people who are suffering under Euro[)can 
despotism all look with hope and anxiety to the American Union 
as the only resting-place and permanent home of freedom and self 
government. 

Mr. Lincoln says that he believes that this Union cannot continue 
to endure with slave States in it, and yet he will not tell you dis- 
tinctly whether he will vote for or against the admission of any 
more slave States, but says he would not like to be put to the test. 
I do not think he will be put to the test. I do not think that the 
people of Illinois desire a man to represent them who would not 
like to be put to the test on the performance of a high constitutional 
duty. I will retire in shame from the Senate of tlie United States 
when I am not willing to be put to the test in the performance of 
my duty. I have been put to severe tests. I have stood by my 
principles in fair weather and in foul, in the sunshine and in the 
rain. I have defended the great principles of self-government 
here among you when Northern sentiment ran in a torrent against 
me, and I have defended that same great principle when Southern 
sentiment came down like an avalanche upon me. I was not afraid 
of any test they put to me. I knew I was right, — 1 knew my prin- 
ciples were sound, — I knew that the people would see in the end 
that I had done right, and I knew that the God of heaven would 
smile upon me if I was faithful in the performance of my duty. 

Mr. Lincoln makes a charge of corruption against the Supreme 
Court of the United States, and two Presidents of the United 
States, and attempts to bolster it up by saying that I did the same 
against the Washington Union. Suppose I did make that charge 
of corruption against the Washington Union, when it was true, does 
that justify him in making a false charge against me and others? 
That is the question I would putL He says that at the time the 
Nebraska bill was introduced, and before it was passed, there was 
a conspiracy between the Judges of the Supreme Court, President 
Pierce, President Buchanan and myself by that bill, and the decis- 
ion of the court to break down the barrier and establish slavery all 
over the Union. Does he not know that that charge is historically 
false as ajifaiust President Buchanan? lie knows that Mr.Bucha- 



so LIFE AXD PUBLIC SERVICES 

nan was at that time in England, repre.^enting tbis country with 
distinguisbeJ ability at tbe Court of St. James, ibat be was tbere 
for a long time before, and did not return for a year or more after. 
He knows that to be true, and tbat fact proves bis cbarge to be 
false as against Mr. Buchanan. Then again, I wish to call his 
attention to the fact that at the time the Nebraska bill was passed, 
the Dred Scott ease was not before the Supreme Court at all ; it 
was not upon the docket of the Supreme Court ; it had not been 
brought there, and the judges in all probability knew nothing of it. 
Thus the history of the country proves the charge to be false as 
against them. As to President Pierce, his high character as a man 
of integrity and honor is enough to vindicate him from such a 
charge ; and as to myself, I pronounce the charge an infamous lie, 
■whenever and wherever made, and by whomsoever made. I am 
willing that Mr. Lincoln should go and rake up every public act of 
mine, every measure I have introduced, report I have made, Epeech 
delivered, and criticise them, but when he charges upon me a cor- 
rupt conspiracy for the purpose of preserving the Institutions of the 
country, I brand it as it deserves. I say the history of ihe country 
proves it to be false, and that it could not have been possible at the 
time. But now he tries to protect himself in this charge, because 
I made a charge against the Washington Union. My speech in the 
Senate, against the Washington L'n/on, was made because it advo- 
cated a revolutionary doctrine, by declaring that the free States 
had not the right to prohibit slavery within their own limits. Be- 
cause I made that charge against the Washington Union, Mr. Lin- 
coln says it.was a charge against Mr. Buchanan. Suppose it was; 
is Mr. Lincoln the peculiar defender of Mr. Buchanan ? Is he so 
interested in the Federal Administration, and so bound to it, that 
he must jump to the rescue and defend it from every attack that I 
rn^iy make against it ? I understand the whole thing. The Wash- 
ington Union, under that most corrupt of all men, Cornelius Wen- 
dell, is advocating Mr. Lincoln's claim to the Senate. Wendell 
■was the printer of the last Black Ilepublican house of representa- 
tives; he was a candidate before the present Democratic house, 
but was ignominiously kicked out, and then he took the money 
which he had nude out of the public printing by means of the 
Black Republi(;ans, bought the Washington Union, and is now 
publishing it in the name of the Democratic party, and advocating 
Mr. Lincoln's election to the Senate. !Mi-. Lincoln therefore con- 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 81 

eiders an attack upon Wendell and his corrupt gang as a personal 
attack upon him. This only proves what I have charged, that there 
is an alliance between Lincoln and his supporters, and the Federal 
olfice-holders of this State, and presidential aspirants out of it, to 
break me down at home. 

Mr. Lincoln feels bound to come in to the rescue of the Wash- 
ington Union. In that speech which I delivered in answer to the 
Washington Union, I made it distinctly against the Union, and 
against the Union alone. I did not choose to go beyond that. If I 
have occasion to attack the President's conduct, I will do it in lan- 
guage that will not be misunderstood. When I differed with the 
President, I spoke out so that you all heard me. That question 
passed away ; it resulted in the triumph of my principle by allow- 
ing the people to do as they please, and there is an end of the con- 
troversy. Whenever the great principle of self-government — the 
right of the people to make their own constitution, and come into 
the Union with slavery or without it, as they see proper, shall 
again arise, you will find me standing firm in defence of that prin- 
ciple, and fighting whoever fights it. If Mr. Buchanan stands, as I 
doubt not he will, by the recommendation contained in his mes- 
sage, that hereafter all State constitutions ought to be submitted to 
the people before the admission of the State into the Union, he 
will find me standing by him firmly, shoulder to shoulder, in carry- 
ing it out. I know Mr. Lincoln's object ; he wants to divide the 
Democratic party, in order that he may defeat me and get to the 
Senate." 

Mr. Douglas's time here expired, and he stopped on the 
moment. 

MR. LINCOLN'S REJOINDER. 

My Friends : It will readily occur to you that I cannot, in half 
an hour, notice all the things that so able a man as Judge Douglas 
can say in an hour and a half; and I hope, therefore, if there be 
anything that ne has said upon which you would like to hear some- 
thing from me, but which I omit to comment upon, you will bear in 
mind that it would be expecting an impossibility for me to go over 
his whole ground. I can but take up some of the points that he 
has dwelt upon, and employ my half hour specially on them. 

The first thing I have to say to you is a word in regard to Judge 



82 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Douglas's declaration about the " vulgarity and blackguardism " in 
the audience, — that no such thing, as he says, was shown by any 
Democrat while I was sjjuaking. Kow, I only wish, by way of re- 
ply on this subject, to say that while / was speaking, / used no 
" vulgarity or blackguardism " toward any Democrat. 

Now, my friends, I come to all this long portion of the Judge's 
speech, — perhaps half of it, — which he has devoted to the various 
resolutions and platforms that have been adopted in the diflcrent 
counties in the different congressional districts, and in the Illinois 
legislature, — which he supposes are at variance with the positions 
I have assumed before you to-day. It is true that many of these 
resolutions are at variance with the positions I have here assumed. 
All I have to ask is that we talk reasonably and rationally about it. 
I happen to know, the Judge's opinion to the contrary notwith- 
standing, that I have never tried to conceal my opinions, nor tried 
to deceive any one in reference to them. lie may go and exam- 
ine all the members who voted for me for United States Senator in 
1855, after the election of 1854. They were pledged to certain 
things here at home, and were determined to have pledges from 
me, and if he will find any of these persons who will tell him any- 
thing inconsistent with what I say now, I will resign, or rather 
retire from the race, and give him no more trouble. The plain 
truth is this : At the introduction of the Nebraska policj-, we be- 
lieved there was a new era being introduced in the history of the 
Republic, which tended to the spread and perpetuation of slavery. 
But in our opposition to that measure we did not agree with one 
another in everything. The people in the north end of the State 
were for stronger measures of oj)position than we of the central 
and southern portions of the State, but we were all opposed to the 
Nebraska doctrine. * We had that one feeling and that one sen- 
timent in common. You at the north end met in your conven- 
tions and passed your resolutions. We in the middle of the State 
and further south did not hold such conventions and pass the 
same resolutions, although we had in general a common view and 
a common sentiment. So that these meetings which the Judge 
Las alluded to, and the resolutions he has read from, were local, 
and did not spread over the whole State. We at last met to- 
gether in 185G, from all parts of the State, and we agreed upon a 
oommon platform. You, who held more extreme notions, either 
yielded those notions, or if not wholly yielding them, agreed to 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 83 

yield them practically, for the sake of embodying the opposition 
to the measures which the opposite party were pushing forward 
at that time. We met you then, and if there was anything yielded, 
it was for practical purposes. We agreed then upon a platform 
for the party throughout the entire State of Illinois, and now we 
are all bound as a party, to that platform. And I say here to you, 
if any one expects of me, in the case of my election, that I will 
do anything not signified by our Republican platform and my 
answers here to-day, I tell you A-ery frankly that person will be 
deceived. I do not ask for the vote of any one who supposes that 
I have secret purposes or pledges that I dare not speak out. Can- 
not the Judge be satisfied ? If he fears, in the unfortunate case of 
my election, that my going to Washington will enable me to advo- 
cate sentiments contrary to those which I expressed when you 
voted for and elected me, I assure him that his fears are wholly 
needless and groundless. Is the Judge really afraid of any such 
thing ? I '11 tell you what he is afraid of. He is afraid we 'II all 
pull togetlier. This is what alarms him more than anything else. 
For my part, I do hope that all of us, entertaining a common senti- 
ment in opposition to what appears to us a design to nationalize 
and perpetuate slavery, will waive minor differences on questions 
which either belong to the dead past or the distant future, and all 
pull together in this struggle. What are your sentiments ? If it 
be true, that on the ground which I occupy, — ground which I oc- 
cupy as frankly and boldly as Judge Douglas does his, — my views, 
though partly coinciding with yours, are not as perfectly in accord- 
ance with your feelings as his are, I do say to you in all candor, go 
for him and not for me. I hope to deal in all things fairly with 
Judge Douglas, and with the people of the State, in this contest. 
And if I should never be elected to any office, I trust I may go 
down with no stain of falsehood upon my reputation, — notwith- 
standing the hard opinions Judge Douglas chooses to entertain 
of me. 

The Judge has again addressed himself to the abolition tenden- 
cies of a speech of mine, made at Springfield in June last. I have 
so often tried to answer what he is always saying on that melan- 
choly (heme, that I almost turn with disgust from the discussion, — - 
from the repetition of an answer to it. I trust that nearly all of 
this intelligent audience have read that speech. If you have, I 
may venture to leave it to you to inspect it closely, and see whether 



84 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

it contains any of those " bugaboos " which frighten Judge 
Douglas. 

The Judge complains that I did not fully answer his questions. 
If I have the sense to comprehend and answer those questions, I 
have done so fairly. If it can be pointed out to me how I can more 
fully and fairly answer him, I aver I have not the sense to see how 
it is to be done. He says I do not declare I would in any event 
vote for the admission of a slave State into the Union. If I have 
been fairly reported, he will see that I did give an explicit answer 
to his interrogatories. I did not merely say that I would dislike to 
be put to the test ; but I said clearly, if I were put to the test, and 
a territory from which slavery had been excluded should present 
herself with a State constitution sanctioning slavery, — a most ex- 
traordinary thing, and wholly unlikely to happen, — I did not see 
how I could avoid voting for her admission. But he refuses to 
understand that I said so, and he wants this audience to under- 
stand that I did not say so. Yet it will be so reported in the 
printed speech that he cannot help seeing it. 

He says if I should vote for the admission of a slave State, I 
would be voting for a dissolution of the Union, because I hold that 
the Union cannot permanently exist half slave and half free. I 
repeat, that I do not believe this Government can endure, perma- 
nently, half slave and half free ; yet I do not admit, nor does it at 
all follow, that the admission of a single slave State will perma- 
nently fix the character and establish this as a universal slave 
nation. The Judge is very happy indeed in working up these 
quibbles. Before leaving the subject of answering questions, I 
aver as my confident belief, when you come to see our speeches 
in print, that you will find every question which he has asked me, 
more fairly and boldly and fully answered than he has answered 
those which I put to him. Is not that so ? Tiae two speeches may 
be placed side by side ; and I will venture to leave it to impartial 
judges whether his questions have not been more directly and 
circumstantially answered than mine. 

Judge Douglas says he made a charge upon the editor of the 
Washington Union alone, of entertaining a purpose to rob the 
States of their power to exclude slavery from their limits. I under- 
take to say, and I make the direct issue, that he did not make his 
charge against the editor of the Union alone. I will undertake to 
prove by the record here, that he made that charge against more 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 85 

and higher dignitaries than the editor of the Washington Union. 1 
am cjuite aware that he was shirking and dodging around the form 
in which he put it, but I can make it manifest that he levelled his 
" fatal blow" against more persons than this Washington editor. 
Will he dodge it now, by alleging that I am trying to defend ]\Ir. 
Buchanan against the charge ? Not at all. Am I not making the 
same charge myself? I am trying to show that you, Judge 
Douglas, are a witness on my side. I am not defending Bu- 
chanan, and I will tell Judge Douglas that in my opinion, when he 
made that charge, he had an eye farther north than he was to-day. 
Ho was then fighting against people who called him a Black Re- 
publican and an Abolitionist. It is mixed all through his speech, 
and it is tolerably manifest that his eye was a great deal forther 
north than it is to-day. The Judge says that though he made this 
charge, Toombs got up and declared there was not a man in the 
United States, except the editor of the Union, who was in fiivor of 
the doctrines put forth In that article. And thereupon, I under- 
stand that the Judge withdrew the charge. Although he had 
taken extracts from the newspaper, and then from the Lecompton 
Constitution, to show the existence of a conspiracy to bring about a 
" fatal blow," by which the States were to be deprived of the right 
of excluding slavery, it all Avent to pot as soon as Toombs got up 
and told him that it was not true. It reminds me of the story that 
John Phoenix, the Callfornian railroad surveyor, tells. He says they 
started out from the Plaza to the Mission of Dolores. They had 
two ways of determining distances. One was by a chain and pia 
taken over the ground. The other was by a " go-it-ometer, — an 
invention of his own, — a three-legged instrument, with which he 
computed a series of triangles between the points. At night he 
turned to the chain-man to ascertain what distance they had come, 
and found that by some mistake he had merely dragged the chain 
over the ground without keeping any record. By the "go-it- 
ometer" he found he had made ten miles. Being skeptical about 
this, he asked a drayman who was passing how far it was to the 
pldza. The drayman replied it was just half a mile, and the sur- 
veyor put it down in his book, — just as Judge Douglas says, after 
he had made his calculations and computations, he took Toombs's 
statement. I have no doubt that after Judge Douglas had made 
his charge, he was as easily satisfied about its truth as the surveyor 
■was of the drayman's statement of the distance of the plaza. Yet 



86 LIFE AXD PUBLIC SERVICES 

it is a fact that the man who put forth all that matter, which 
Douglas deemed a " fatal blow" at State sovereigntv, was elected 
by the Democrats as public printer. 

Xow, gentlemen, you may take Judge Douglas's speech of ^larch 
22d. 1858, beginning about the middle of page 21, and reading to 
the bottom of page 24, and you will find the evidence on which I 
say that he did not make his charge against the editor of the Union 
alone. I cannot stop to read it, but I will give it to the reporters. 
Judge Douglas said : — 

'• Mr. President, you here find several distinct propositions ad- 
vanced boldly by the Washington Union editorially, and apparently 
authorilatively, and every man who questions any of them is de- 
nounced as an abolitionist, a freesoiler. a fanatic. The propositions 
are, first, that the primarj- object of all government, at its orighial 
institution, is the protection of persons and property; second, that 
the Constitution of the United States declares that the citizens of 
each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of 
citizens in the several States ; and that, therefore, thirdly, all State 
laws, whether organic or otherwise, which prohibit the citizens of 
one State from settling in another with their slave property, and 
especially declaring it forfeited, are direct violations of the ori^rinal 
intention of the -Government and Constitution of the United 
Srates ; and fourth, that the emancipation of the slaves of the 
Northern States was a gross outrage on the rights of property, 
inasmuch as it was involuntarily done on the part of the owner." 

" Remember that this article was published in the Union on the 
17th of 2^ovember, and on the 18th appeared the first article giving 
the adhesion of the Union to the Lecompton Constitution. It was 
in these words : — 

" ' K.VSSAS AXD HER CoxsTiTCTiox. — The vexed question 
is settled. The problem is solved. The dead point of danger is 
passed. All serious trouble to Kansas affaii-s is over and gonu' — 

" And a column, nearly, of the same sort. Then, when yon 
come to look into the Lecompton Constitution, you find the same 
doctrine incorporated in it which was put forth editorially in the 
Union. What is it ? 

" 'Article 7, Section 1. The right of property is before and 
higher than any constitutional sanction ; and the right of the 
owner of a slave to such slave and its increeise is the same and 
as invariable as the right of the owner of any property whatever.' 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 87 

" Then in the schedule is a provision that the Constitution may 
be amended after 18G4 by a two thirds vote. 

" ' But no alteration shall be made to affect the right of property 
in the ownership of slaves.' 

" It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitution, 
that they are identical in spirit with this authoritative article in the 
Washington Union of the day previous to its indorsement of this 
Constitution. 

" When I saw that article in the Union of the 1 7th of November, 
followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 
18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the 
doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slavery within its 
limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sover- 
eignty of the States of this Union." 

Here he says, " Mr. President, you here find several distinct 
propositions advanced boldly, and apparently authoritativebj." 
By whose authority, Judge Douglas ? Again, he says in another 
place, "It will be seen by these clauses in the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion, that they are identical in spirit with this authoritative article." 
Bii ichose authoriti/ ? Who do you mean to saj' authorized the pub- 
lication of these articles ? He knows that the Washington Union 
is considered the organ of the administration, /demand of Judge 
Douglas by whose authority he meant to say those articles were pub- 
lished, if not by the authority of the President of the United 
States and his Cabinet ? I defy him to show whom he referred to, 
if not to these high functionaries in the Federal Government. 
More than this, he says the articles in that paper and the provisions 
of the Lecompton Constitution are " identical," and being idL'ntical, 
he argues that, the authors are co-operating and conspiring together. 
He does not use the word " conspiring," but what other construction 
can YOU put upon it ? He winds up with this : — 

" When I saw that article in the Union of the 17th of November, 
followed by the glorification of the Lecompton Constitution on the 
18th of November, and this clause in the Constitution asserting the 
doctrine that a State has no right to prohibit slaverj' within its 
limits, I saw that there was a fatal blow being struck at the sover- 
eignty of the States of this Union." 

I ask him if all this fuss was made over the editor of this news- 
paper V It would be a terribly ^^ fatal blow " which a single man 
could strike, when no President, no Cabinet officer, no member of 



88 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

Conjrress, was giving strength and efficiency to the moment. Out 
of respect to Judge Douglas's good sense, I must believe that he 
didn't manufacture his idea of the " fatal " character of that blow- 
out of such a miserable scapegrace as he represents that editor to 
be. But the Judge's eye is farther South now. Then, it was very 
peculiarly and decidedly North. His hope rested on the idea of 
visiting the great " Black Republican " party, and making it the 
tail to his new kite. He knows he was then expecting from day to day 
to turn Republican, and place himself at the head of our organiza- 
tion. He has found that these despised " Black Republicans " esti- 
mate him by a standard which he has taught them none too well. 
Hence he is crawling back into his old camp, and you Avill find him 
eventually installed in full fellowship among those whom he was 
then battling, and with whom he now pretends to be at such fearful 
variance. [Loud applause, and cries of " go on, go on."J I can- 
not, gentlemen, my time has expired. 



OF ABKAHAM LINCOLN 89 



CHAPTER VI. 

Ee-election of Mr. Don;;;las!— Fraudulent districting— Canvass in Ohio— Speeches 
by Mr. Lincoln — Speech at Jsevf York, &c. 

TuE circumstances attending the re-election of Mr. Douglas 
to the United States Senate by the Illinois legislature, elected 
at the close of the canvass previously described, are too fresh 
in the public mind to need much detail here. Mr. Lincoln 
was largely triumphant on the popular vote. The Republican 
members of that legistature having on the total vote of the 
State, a majority over the Douglas Democrats of about five thou- 
sand. Yet, Douglas had a majority of the body, and was 
therefore re-elected. This result was accomplished through a 
fraudulent districting of the State by a previous legislature, 
whereby small democratic districts had the same and even 
larger representation than densely populated ones, which were 
largely Republican. The "gerrymandering" was successful 
in defeating the Free Labor candidate, 

Mr. Lincoln spoke twice in Ohio during the gubernatorial 
canvass of the following year. Gov. Dennison was the repre- 
sentative of the Republicans, and Judge Ranney of the Dem- 
ocrats. The latter gentleman is one of the ablest men in the 
Anti-Lecompton ranks. 

The fight between the Illinois Senator and the Administra- 
tion, continuing with the same bitterness of spirit at first man- 
ifested, the Ohio canvass was looked to with much interest. 
Senator Douglas had just issued his celebrated Harper article, 
and it had been assailed by Attorney-General Black. 3Ir. 
Douglas took the stump in Ohio in support of Rannoy. The 
Republicans placed Mr. Lincoln in the field against him, as the 



90 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

man best fitted to cope with the " Little. Giant." Undoubtedly, 
from the experience of the previous year, he was thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the tortuous sinuosities of the Senator's sophisti- 
cal and declamatory periods. Mr. Lincoln performed the duty 
assigned him, and in two speeches, delivered in September, 
1859, at Columbus and Cincinnati, respectively, demolished 
effectually the framework of Douglas's argument. 

Mr. Lincoln spoke several times during 'the last winter to 
large audiences in the Eastern States. He delivered an effective 
oration on "National Politics" at the Cooper Institute, New 
York, before the Young Men's Republican Club, of that city, 
which was largely attended. A New York correspondent of a 
far-western paper, thus describes the speaker, the speech, and 
its effects : — 

" The tall form of the "Westerner, towering as it ought to do, 
a full head and shoulders above the New Yorkers who surround- 
ed him, and nearly doubling on the fat, jolly, and jocund Gen. 
Nye, — his small, compact head, dark complexion, and beard- 
less face, too, furnishing a striking contrast to the great heail, 
grim, grand countenance, and white beard of the venerable poet 
Bryant, while the dark piercing eye, close-cut hair, and ears sot 
back almost out of sight, and the quick, vigilant manner, and 
plain Western dress, all combined to give him a decidedly strik- 
ing and characteristic personality. His voice is sharp and shrill, 
pitched on a very high key, but at times, full, powerful, and 
sonorous ; his manner is high-toned and courteous, his features 
capable of an infinite variety of expression ; his enunciation 
slow and emphatic ; his argument candid, closely reasoned, log- 
ical, and speaking with a generous humor. Altogether, he made 
the best impression, and stirred up the greatest enthusiasm of 
any public speaker I have heard for many a day." 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 91 



CHAPTER VII. 

National Rerublican Conrention —Preparations at Chicago— The Wigwam 
— General EnthusLism — Organization — Speech of the President — Nomi- 
nations — Ballotings — Choice of Lincoln — Vice-President — Hamlin, etc. 

TuE second National nominating Convention of tbe Republi- 
can party, met at Chicago, on the IGth of May. The asseni- 
Ming of the first, at Philadelphia, in June 1856, marked an era 
jn national polities. 

The outrages of the slave oligarchy in Kansas, and the manly 
character and life of the gallant Republican standard-bearer, 
John Charles Fremont, stirred up such a generous burst of en- 
thusiasm as seldom before made the heart of a great nation beat 
to a noble cause. The young men were felt in that campaign. 
Men grave and reverend, bearing honored names in literature, 
sciences, and politics, came forward from their retirement to 
speak for the choice of the aroused North. The results of that 
glorious campaign are well known. Though defeated, it was 
but a Waterloo victory for the foe. 

The Republican party sliowed, by the immense vote given for 
its candidates, how great a hold its principles had upon the pi'.b- 
lic mind. This hold has not decreased, but rather become in- 
tensified, in the intervening four years. The reassembling of 
the party in convention, was looked forward to with the most 
eager interest. 

The people of Chicago made every preparation to accommo- 
date the hosts, who were westward wending their way, in the 
most liberal manner. Never before had the "Garden City" 
witnessed such animating scenes. It is reported that at least 



92 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

forty thousand strangers visited the city during the sitting of the 
Convention. The delegates numbered 4G5, and comprised re- 
presentatives from all the Northern, and six of the slave States, 
viz. Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, Virginia, Texas, and Mis- 
souri, and from the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and the 
District of Columbia. 

The candidates for President, most prominent, were Seward, 
of New York ; Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois ; Salmon P. Chase 
and Judge Wade, of Ohio ; Edward Bates, of Missouri ; and 
Mr. Cameron, of Penn.sylvania. The friends of each were 
earnest and zealous in behalf of their choice, but Mr. Seward's 
and Mr. Lincoln's names created the greatest amount of enthu- 
siasm. 

The Ptcpublicans of Chicago had erected a huge temporary 
building for the use of the Convention. The " Wigwam," as it 
was called, covered a space of GOO feet by 180, and the height was 
between 50 and GO feet. The building would hold about 10,000 
persons, and was divided into platform, ground-floor, and gal- 
lery. The stage upon which the delegates and members of the 
press were seated, held about 1,800 persons ; the ground-floor and 
galleries about 8,000. The floor rested on an inclined platform, so 
that those in the rear were able to see the stage as well as the 
spectators in the front. A large gallery was reserved for the 
ladies, and which was filled every day to overflowing. 

At 12, M., on Wednesday the IGth of May, Gov. Morgan, of 
New York, Chairman of the National Committee, called the 
Convention to order, and nominated David Wilmot, of Pa., as 
President, pro tern. 

A permanent organization was eflfected in the afternoon, — 
Hon. George Aehmun, of Massachu.«etts, being chosen President, 
and the following gentlemen Vice-Presidents and Secretaries : — 

VICE-PRESIDENTS. 

S. F. Ilcrsey, Maine. John Beard, Indiana. 

Wm. Hall, New Hampshire. David Davis, Illinois. 
Wm. Heberd, A^ermout. Thos. W. Ferry, JMiohigan. 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



93 



Ensign n. Kellogg, Mass. 
E. G. Hazard, Rhode Island. 
E. F. Cleveland, Connecticut. 
Wm. O. Noyes, New York. 
E. Z. Rogers, New Jersey. 
Thaddeus Stevens, Penn. 
John C. Clark, Delaware. 
Wm. L. Marshall, Maryland. 
Richard Crawford, Virginia. 
George D. Burgess, Ohio. 



Hans Crocker, Wisconsin. 
Henry P. Schotte, Iowa. 
Aaron Gootlrieh, Minnesota. 
Henry T. Blow, Missouri. 
W. D. Gallagher, Kentucky 
W. T. Chandler. Texas. 
A. A. Sargent, California. 
Joel Burlingamc, Oregon. 
Wm. Ross, Kansas. 
George Harrington, Dist. Col 



A. S. Paddock, Nebraska. 



SECRKTARIES. 



Chas. A. Wing, Maine. 
Nathl. Hubbard, New Hamp. 
R. R. Hazard, R. Island. 
H. H. Starkweather, Conu. 
C. 0, Rogers, Massachusetts. 
Theodore M. Pomeroy, N. Y. 
Edward Bettie, N. Jersey. 
J. Bollman Bell, Penn. 
Benj. C. Hopkins, Delaware. 
William E. Coale, Maryland. 
A. W. Campbell, Virginia. 
Horace Z. Beebe, Ohio. 



S. Davis, Illinois. 
Wm. M. Stoughton, Mich. 
L. T. Trisby, Wisconsin. 
W. R. Allison, Iowa. 
D. A. Secamb, Minnesota. 
J. J. Kidd, Missouri. 
John J. Hawes, Kentucky. 
Dunbar Henderson, Texas. 
D. J. Staples, California. 
Eli Thayer, Oregon. 
John A. IMartin, Kansas. 
H. R. Hitchcock, Nebraska. 



D. D. Pellate, Indiana. 

]Mr. Ashmun, in taking the Chair, spoke as follows : — 
Gentlemen of the Convention, Republicans and Americans : My 
first duty is to express to you my deep sense of this distinjiuished 
mark of your confidence, and in the spirit in which it is otiered I 
accept of it. I am sensible of the difficulties which surround the 
position, but I am cheered and sustained by the faith that the same 
generosit}' which brought me here will carry me through the dis- 
charge of my duties. I will not shrink from the position which is 
at the same time the post of danger as well as honor. (Applause.) 
Gentlemen, we have come here to-day at the call of the country, 
from widely separated homes, to fulfil a great and important duty. 



94 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

No ordlnan' call has brought us together. Nothing but a moment- 
ous question would have called this vast multitude together, — no- 
thing but the deep sense of danger into -which the Government is 
fast running, could have rallied the people thus in this city to-day 
for the purpose of rescuing the Government from the deep degrada- 
tion into which it has fallen. (Loud applause.) We have come 
here at the call of the country for the purpose of preparing for the 
most solemn duty that freemen can perform. We have here, in 
our ordinary capacity as delegates of the people, to prepare for the 
formation and carrying on of a new administration, and with the 
help of God we will do it. (Loud applause.) No mere controversy 
ai)0ut miserable abstractions brought us here to-day. We do not 
come here on any idle question. The sacrifice which we have made 
in an extended journey, and the time we have devoted to it, would 
not have been made except on some solemn call. The stern look 
which I see on every face, and the earnest behavior which has 
been manifested in all the preliminary discussion, show that all have 
a true and deep sense of the solemn obligations which are resting 
upon us. Gentlemen, it does not belong to me to make any ex- 
tended address, but rather to assist in the details of the business 
which belongs to the Convention ; but allow me to say 1 think we 
have a right here to-day, in the name of the American people, to 
impeach the administration of our General Government of the highest 
crimes that can be committed against a constitutional government, 
against a free people, and against humanity. (Prolonged cheers.) 
The catalogue of its crimes it is not for me to i-ecite ; it is written 
on every page of the history of the present administration of the 
Government, and I care not how many paper protests the President 
may send into the House of Representatives. (Laughter and ap- 
plause.) We here, as a grand inquest of the nation, w^ill find out 
for him and his confederates, not only a punishment terrible and 
sure, but a remedy that shall be satisfactory. (Loud applause.) 
Before proceeding to business, the Convention will allow me to con- 
gratulate you and the people on the striking features which I think 
must have been noticed by everybody who has mixed in the preli- 
minary discussions of the people who have gathered in this beautiful 
city ;■ it is that brotherly kindness and generous emulation which 
have marked every conversation and every discussion, showing a 
desire for nothing save the country's good. Earnest, warm, generous 
preferences are expressed; ardent hopes and Ibnd purposes ar© 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 95 

declared, but. not during the three days I have spent among you all 
have I heard one unkind word uttered by one man against another. 
I hail it as an augury of success, and if during the proceedings of 
the Convention you will unite to perpetuate that feeling and allow 
it to pervade all your proceedings, I declare to you that it will be 
the surest and brightest omen of our success, whoever may be the 
standard-bearer in the great contest that is pending. (Applause.) 
In that spirit, gentlemen, let us now proceed to business — to the 
great work which the American people have given Into our hands 
to do. (Loud cheers.) 

On Thursday, the 17tb, the Committee on Resolutions re- 
ported the following platform, ■which was adopted amid the 
wildest enthusiasm. 

PLATFORM OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 

Resolved, That we, the delegated representatives of the Repub- 
lican Electors of the United States, in Convention assembled. In 
the discharge of the duty we owe to our constituents and our coun- 
try, unite in the following declarations : — 

First, That the history of the nation during the last four years 
has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization 
and perpetuation of the Republican party, and that the causes 
which called It into existence are permanent in their nature, and 
now more than ever before demand its peaceful and constitutional 
triumph. 

Second : That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in 
the Declaration of Independence, and embodied In the Federal 
Constitution, is essential to the preservation of our Republican insti- 
tutions ; that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and 
the union of the States, must and shall be preserved ; and that we 
reassert " these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain un- 
alienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are Insti- 
tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed." 

Third : That to the union of the States this nation owes its un- 
precedented increase in population ; its surprising development of 



96 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

material resources ; its rapid augmentation of .vealth ; its happiness 
at home, and its honor abroad : and we hold in abhorrence all 
schemes for disunion, come from whatever source they may ; and 
we congratulate the country that no Repubhcan member of Con- 
gress has uttered or countenanced a threat of disunion, so often 
made by Democratic members of Congress without rebuke and 
with applause from their political associates; and we denounce 
those threats of disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their 
ascendency, as denying the vital principles of a free government, 
and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the impera- 
tive duty of an indignant people strongly to rebuke and forever 
silence. 

Fourth : That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the 
States, and especially the right of each State to order and control 
its own domestic institutions, according to its own judgment exclu- 
sively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection 
and endurance of our political faith depends, and we denounce 
the lawless invasion by armed force of any State or Territory, no 
matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes. 

Fifth : That the present Democratic administration has far ex- 
ceeded our worst apprehensions in its measureless subserviency to 
the exactions of a sectional interest, as is especially evident in its 
desperate exertions to force the infamous Lecompton Constitution 
upon the protesting people of Kansas, — in construing the personal 
relation between master and servant to involve an unqualified 
property in persons, — in its attempted enforcement everywhere, 
on land and sea, through the intervention of Congress and the 
Federal Courts of the extreme pretentions of a purely local inter- 
est, and in its general and unvarying abuse of the power intrusted 
to it by a confiding people. 

Sixth : That the people justly view with alarm the reckless ex- 
travagance which pervades every department of the Federal Gov- 
ernment ; that a return to rigid economy and accountability is 
indispensable to arrest the system of plunder of the public treas- 
ury by favored partisans ; while the recent startling developments 
of fraud and corruption at the Federal metropolis, show that an 
entire change of admlilistration is imperatively demanded. 

Seventh : That the new dogma that the Constitution of its own 
force carries slavery into any or all the Territories of the United 
States, is a dangerous political heresy, at variance with the explicit 



OP ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 97 

provisions of that instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposi- 
tion, and with legislative and judic;ial precedent, is revolutionary 
in its tendency and subversive of the peace and harmony of the 
country. 

Eiffhih: That the normal condition of all the territory of the 
United States is that of freedom ; that as our republican fathers, 
when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, or- 
dained that no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or prop- 
erty, without the process of law, it becomes our duty, by legis- 
lation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this 
provision of the Constitution against all attempt to violate it; and 
we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or 
of any individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territo- 
ry of the United States. 

Ninth: That we brand the recent reopening of the African 
slave-trade, under the cover of our national flag, aided by perver- 
sions of judicial power, as a crime against humanity, a burning 
.shame to our country and age, and we call upon Congress to 
take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final sup- 
pression of that execrable traflic. 

Tenth : That in the recent vetoes by their Federal Governors oi 
the acts of the legislatures of Kansas and Nebraska, prohibiting 
slavery in those Territories, we find a practical illustration of the 
boasted Democratic principle of non-intervention and popular sov- 
ereignty, embodied in the Kansas and Nebraska bill, and a de- 
nunciation of the deception and fraud involved therein. 

Eleventh : That Kansas should of right be immediately admit- 
ted as a State under the Constitution recently formed and 
adopted by her people, and accepted by the House of Kep- 
rescntatives. 

Twelfth : That while providing revenue for the support of the 
General Government by duties upon imposts, sound policy requires 
such an adjustment of these imposts as to encouragg the develop- 
ment of the industrial interest of the whole country, and we com- 
mend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the woi'k- 
ing-men liberal wages, to agriculture renuinerating prices, to me- 
chanics and manutacturers an adequate reward tor their skill, 
labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and 
independence. 

Thirteenth : That we protest against any sale or alienation to othera 



98 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

of the pulilic lands held by actual settlers, and against any view of 
the free Homestead policy which regards the settlers as paupers or 
supplicants for public bounty, and we demand the passage by Con- 
gress of the complete and satisfactory Homestead measure which 
has already passed the House. 

Fourteenth: That the Republican party is opposed to any 
change in our Naturalization laws, or any State legislation by 
which the rights of citizenship hitherto accorded to immigrants 
from foreign lands shall be abridged or impaired ; and in favor of 
giving a full and efhcient protection to the rights of all classes of 
citizens, whether native or naturalized, both at home or abroad. 

Fifteenth : That appropriations by Congress for river and harbor 
improvements of a national character, required for the accommo- 
dation and security of an existing commerce, are authorized by the 
Constitution, and justified by an obligation of the government to 
protect the lives and property of its citizens. 

Sixteenth : That a railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively 
demanded by the interests of the whole country ; that the Federal 
Government ougiit to render immediate and eflicient aid in its con- 
struction, and that as preliminary thereto, a daily overland mail 
should be promptly established. 

Seventeenth : Finally, having thus set forth our distinctive prin- 
ciples and views, we invite the co-operation of all citizens, however 
differing on other questions, who substantially agree with us, in 
their affirmance and support. 

Ballotinffs for candidate commenced on Friday, the third dny 
of the scsi^ion. William M. Evartn, of New York, placed in 
nomination the name of William H. Seward ; Mr. Judd, of 
Illinois, that of Abraham Lincoln ; Mr. Dudley, of New Jersey, 
that of William L. Dayton ; Gov. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, the 
name of Simon Cameron ; Mr. Carter, of Ohio, Salmon P. 
Chase ; Frank*P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, Edward Bates ; and 
Tom Corwin, of Ohio, Judge McLean. Much excitement and 
cheering followed, as delegates from various States seconded the 
different nominations. • The following summary shows the results 
of the three ballots taken by the Convention : — 



OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 99 



FIRST BALLOT. 

For Mr. Seward 1 73^ iFor Mr. McLean 12 

For Mr. Lincoln 102' I For Mr. Collamer 10 

For Mr. Cameron SU^jiFor Mr. Wade 3 

For Mr. Cbase 49 JFor Mr. Sumner 1 

For Mr. Bates 48 For Mr. Reed 1 

For Mr. Dayton 14 [For ]\lr. Fremont 1 

Whole number of votes, 465"; necessary to a choice, 233. 

SECOND BALLOT. 

For Mr. Seward 184^' For Mr. Dayton 10 

For Mr. Lincoln 18rjFor Mr. McLean 8 

For jNIr. Chase 4 2 J- For Mr. Cameron 2 

For Mr. Bates 35 |For Mr. Clay 2 

THIRD BALLOT. 

For Mr. Lincoln 354 I For INIr. Dayton 1 

For Mr. Seward 110^L|For Mr. McLean ^ 

Intelligence of the nomination was now conveyed to the men 
on the roof of the building, who immediately made the outsido 
multitude aware of the result. Tlie first roar of the cannon 
soon mingled itself with the cheers of the people, and the same 
moment a man appeared in the hall, bringing a large painting 
of Mr. Lincoln. The scene at this time surpassed description, 
— 11,000 people inside, and 20,000 or 30,000 outside, were 
yelling and shouting at once. Two cannon sent forth roar after 
roar in quick succession. Delegates tore up the sticks ard 
boards bearing the names of the several States, and waved them 
aloft over their heads, and the vast multitude before the platform 
were waving hats and handkerchiefs. The whole scene was one 
of the wildest enthusiasm. 

When silence was restored, William M. Evarts came forward 
to the Secretary's table, and spoke as follows : — 

Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen of the National Convention, — The 
State of New York, by a full delegation, with complete unaniuiity 
of purpose at home, came to this Convention, and presented as its 
choice one of its citizens who had served the State from boyhood 
up, and labored for it and loved it. We came here a great State, 
with, as we thought, a great statespian — (applause) — and our love 



100 LIFE AXD PUBLIC SERVICES 

for the groat Hepublic from winch we are all delegates, — the great 
Republic of the American Union; and our love for the great lie- 
publican party of the Union, and our love of our statesman and 
candidate, made us think we did our duty to the country and the 
whole country in expressing our preference and love for him. (Ap- 
plause.) But, gentlemen, it was from Gov. Seward that most of us 
learned to love Republican princij^les and the Republican party. 
(Cheers.) His fidelity to the country, the Constitution and the 
liiws; his fidelity to the party and the principles that majorities 
govern; his interest in the advancement of our party to its victory, 
that our country may rise to its true glory, induce me to declare 
that I speak his sentiments, as I do the united opinion of our dele- 
gation, when I move, sir, as I do now, that the nomination of Abra- 
ham Lincoln, of Illinois, as the Republican canJidate for the suf- 
frages of the whole country for the office of Chief Magistrate of 
the American Union be made unanimous. (Applause, and three 
cheers for New York.) 

In the afternoon the Convention balloted for Vice-President. 
Mr. Wilder, of Kansas, named John Hickman, of Pennsylva- 
nia ; Mr. Lewis, of Pennsylvania, seconded the nomination ; 
Mr. Carter, of Ohio, named Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine ; Mr. 
Boutweli, of Massachusetts, named N. P. Banks, of Massachu- 
setts ; Mr. Smith, of Indiana, named Cassius M. Clay ; Mr. 
Lowry, of Pennsylvania, named Gov. Reeder, of Pennsylvania. 

The balloting resulted as follows : — 

FIRST BALLOT. 



For Mr. Hamlin 194 

For Uc. Clay lOU 

For Mr. Hickman 58 

For Mr. Reeder 51 

For Mr. Banks oSi 



For JNIr. Davis 8 

For Mr. Houston 6 

For Mr. Denton 3 

For Mr. Reed 1 



SECOND -BALLOT. 

For Mr. Hamlin 367 |For Mr. Clay 86 

For Mr. Hickman 13 

Speeches were made by delegates from the various States, ia 
favor of the Ticket, Platform, and general success of the Re- 
publican party. 



OF ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. 101 

The Convention, after completing the business, liy the ap- 
pointment of a National Executive Committee, adjourned sine 
die, with nine cheers for the candidates. 

The telegraph flashed the intelligence throughout the Union, 
and ratification meetings were held in nearly all of the cities 
and towns of the Northern States the same evening. 

The Republican Convention has done its work. Their platr 
form and candidates are before the people. 

Throughout the Northern States, the nominations were enthu- 
siastically received. In the Empire State, which had confi- 
dently looked for the nomination of her favorite son, William H. 
Seward, the effect of the news was at first that of surprise, and 
then of hearty approval. Ja Pennsylvania, by the votes of those 
delegates, Mr. Lincoln was virtually placed before the country, 
the intelligence was greeted with the utmost enthusiasm. So 
throughout the doubtful States. In the West, the excitement 
rose to fever-heat. 

At Springfield, the home of Mr. Lincoln, the enthusiasm on 
receiving the news of his nomination, verged on wildness. Guns 
were fired, bonfires blazed, ofiices, stores, and dwelling-houses 
were illuminated, an impromptu torclilight procession formed, 
and the Republican candidate greeted with a serenade. Mr. 
Lincoln, in returning thanks, spoke of the demonstration thus 
made, not as personal to himself, but rather as a tribute to the 
principles which he was held worthy enough to represent. 

The Committee, appointed by the llepublican National Con- 
vention, comprising the president, Mr. Ashmun, and the chair- 
man of the State delegations, to officially announce to Hon. 
Abraham Lincoln his nomination, arrived at Springfield. Satur- 
day night, the 19th, and proceeded to Mr. Lincoln's residence, 
where Mr. Ashmun, in a brief speech, presented Mr. Lincoln a 
letter, announcing his nomination. Mr. Lincoln replied as fol- 
lows : — 

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee, — I tender 
yon, and through you, the Republloan National Convention, and all 
people represented in it, my profouadest thanks ibr the high honor 



102 LIFE OP ABRAHAM LIKCOLN. 

done me, which you formally announce. Deeply and even pain- 
fully sensible of the great responsibility -which is inseparable from 
that honor, a responsibility whijh I could almost wish could have 
fallen upon some one of the far more eminent and experienced 
statesmen, whose distinguished names were before the Convention, 
I shall, by your leave, consider more fully the resolutions of the 
Convention, denominated the platform, and without unreasonable 
delay, respond to you, Mr. Chairman, in writing, not doubting that 
the platform will be found satisfactory, and the nomination ac- 
cepted. Now I will not defer the pleasure of taking you and each 
of you by the hand." 

The various members of the Committees were severally intro- 
duced and welcomed by the future President of this Union. 

At "Washington, Judge Douglas declared that there would not 
be a pound of gunpowder or a tar-barrel left in IlUnios. If the 
remark had been of all the Western States, it would have been 
equally true. These popular outbursts are but a token of those 
to come. The " ides of November " will without doubt see the 
victorious Republican hosts dragging the men chosen to represent 
them in triumph to the White House. 



y 



M. 



<iS2^^2- i2— ^i^-O ^ ^i^ 



LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN, 



OF MAINE. 




a. 



rv 



/^ , l^i^ JLyCd^t^JU-^i.^^ 



INTRODUCTORY, 



JIr. Hamlin is a true son of New England. All the charac- 
teristics of the Yankee, he possesses in the highest degree. Born 
among the immense forests of Maine, his appearance is that of the 
genuine Down-easter, — a type of character of which much has 
been said, but had little justice done it either by native or 
foreign writers. It is a character which combines shrewdness and 
cunning with intellectual strength ; the craftiness of the Je-w with 
the moral heroism of a Luther ; and a physical development, so 
affluent of bone and muscle, so wiry and virile as to be able to 
carry on its work with credit and power, whether seen in driving 
logs down the turbulent Penobscot, or sitting in the senatorial 
chair arranging treaties with the nations of the earth, who come, 
like the Japanese princes of the East, to link themselves to the 
triumphal car of the young giants of the West. The physique of 
Senator Hamlin is very striking. He is about six feet in height, 
and well proportioned ; the features are a little heavy when not 
animated by conversation, but his coal-black eye, 

" A glorious one, 
Bright as a diamond in the sun," 

relieves all dulness of face by its piercing eagle-like glance. His 
complexion is somewhat yellow and bilious, his hair dark, and his 
head has remarkable phrenological dejelopments, among which the 
perceptive and reasoning faculties appear with the greatest promi- 
nence. He has a slight stoop of the shoulders, and is ra'ther 
awkward, as a whole, in his carriage and gesticulations ; but 
all this is soon forgot under the magic of his conversation or 
speech. He is careless, and almost slovenly in his dress, and the 
plentiful use of tobacco, which he chews incessantly when he is not 
smoking, stains his bosom with the juice of the weed. He is none 
of your kid-glove gentry, but is large handed and open palmed to 
every member of the free, unwashed democracy. A traveller 
through the town of his residence may see him any summer, 



106 INTRODiUCTOPvY, 

about haying-time, in the fields in his shirt- sleeves, like the com- 
monest laborer; and in his social intercourse with men he pays but 
little regard to the conventionalities of so-called polite society. He 
's " free, fraeh, savage," as Walt. Whitman says, and thinks just as 
much of you, in shabby attire, as if you were faultlessly clad in 
shining broadcloth. 

As a stump speaker ho has few equals. It is on the stump that 
his peculiar powers are seen to the best advantage. He abounds in 
felicitous anecdotes, which, if sometimes coarse, are none the less 
good ; and his quickness at repartee is remarkable, and sometimes 
overwhelming. One of his sharp things in this line, we remem- 
ber, occurred in a speech which he delivered in Faneuil Hall, 
Boston, during a gubernatorial campaign. He had just con- 
cluded a terrific denunciation of the administration, and the 
Democratic partj' generally, and, just as the applause subsided, a 
solitary hiss was heard. He paused, and looking, with all the lurk- 
ing comic-dev'l in his eyes, at the spot from which this serpent- 
like noise had proceeded, he said, with that nasal twang of which 
he is master : " Is that a hiss I hear ? " The manner in which this 
was said, and which it is impossible to describe, convulsed the 
audience with laughter, and then, gathering himself up, he gave 
the unfortunate hisser a final and annihilating shot, thus : " It is 
said that the hiss of a goose once saved Rome, but it wont save 
modern Democracy." It is needless to say that this last sally was 
received with renewed merriment. 

This is only a mere glance at his style when on the rostrum or 
the stump, as it is called, in the West. His speeches are full of the 
sharpest hits, and the most convincing logic. We have thus 
briefly described the Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, ex- 
Governor, and present representative of Maine in the United 
States Senate. 

This is the man on whom the people of Maine have lavished 
every honor within their gift as a State, and it is no more than just 
to say, that he has sustained himself in every position in which he 
has been placed with rare ability, and done great credit to himself, 
and his native State. It is needless to add that he is to be the next 
Vice-President of the United States, and as presiding oflicer of 
the first legislative body in the world, he will amply sustain the 
dignity of the position, and reflect great honor on the gallant body 
of northern freemen he so ably represents. 



LIFE AND PUBLIC SEETICES 

OF 

HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN 



CHAPTER I . 

Date of Birth — Profession — Political Faith — Entrance to Public Life — 
Election to State Legislature, etc. 

TuE career of Hannibal Hamlin, Representative in the U. 
S. Senate from the State of Maine, and the candidate of the 
Republican party for Vice-President, is so intimately associated 
from his long public services with the political history of the 
country, from 1840 down, that to tell the leading facts would 
involve the necessity of using more space than our little volume 
contains. We must therefore content ourselves with briefly and 
succinctly noting the leading points. 

Senator Hamlin was born August 27, 1809, in Paris, Oxford 
County, Maine. He is consequently about six months younger 
than Mr. Lincoln, his associate on the Republican ticket. He 
resides in Hampden, Penobscot County. 

Mr. Hamlin's father was a thriving and leading physician, 
and gave his sons an excellent education. The subject of this 
sketch passed honorably through his early educational career, 
and, with the necessary preliminary study, was admitted to the 
bar soon after reaching his majority. 

He entered soon into active political life, identifying himself 
with the vigorous Democratic party of that period ; not then as 



108 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

now, the abject instrument of tlie designs of the Southern oL*- 
garehy. He was but twenty-six years of age when first returned 
by his party to the State legislature. He served in that body 
for the next four years; during three of which, he was the 
Speaker of its House of Representatives. 

In 1843, he was elected a R ;presentative to the Twenty- 
eighth Congress. He served during both sessions, and was re- 
elected to the Twenty-ninth Congress. 

While sitting in the national House of Representatives, the 
absorbing subject of public interest was the question of annex- 
ing Texas. Mr. Hamlin early identified himself by his votes, 
speeches, and other public action, with the Freesoil element of 
his party, on the resolutions of Mr. Brown, of Tenn., (providing 
for the annexation, with a provision that the States to be formed 
therefrom might come into the Union with or without slavery,) 
which was amended by 3Ir. Douglas, of 111., to the pffect that 
the provisions of the Missouri Compromise should be extended 
to the Texas territory ; and in all States formed out of it north 
of 36° 30', slavery should be prohibited ; when the vote came 
up on its final passage, Mr. Hamlin, with the northern Freesoil 
members of both great parties voted against both the original 
resolution and amendment. With most of his party, he voted 
for receiving Texas, when that republic accepted the proposal of 
annexation ; and again afiirmatively his vote was recorded for 
the final admission of the "Lone Star" State. 

In the Twenty-ninth Congress, ]Mr Hamlin's vote as strongly 
indicates his anti-slavery proclivities, though party ties still had 
their effect upon his action. His vote will be found recorded 
against Mr. Boyd's, of Ky., resolution declaring war against 
Mexico. His action throughout this Congress was of the same 
stamp. 



OP HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 109 



CHAPTER II. 

Return Home — State Lef^islature Election to the United States Senate — Ad- 
mission of Oregon — Compromise of 1850— Mr. Hamlin's votes— The Ke- 
braska Bill — Abandonment of the Democratic Party — Election as Governor 
— Eeturu to the Senate, &C. 

On the adjournment of Congress in 1847, ho returned to 
Maine and was elected a member of the House of Representa- 
tives of the State legislature. Ho served in this body during 
that term, and was elected by it to the United States Senate for 
a period of four years, May 26, 1848, to fill a vacancy caused 
by the decease of John Fairfield. 

He took his seat in that body, and in consequence was a mem- 
ber and participant in the contest for the organization of Oregon, 
and the celebrated compromise struggle of 1850, caused by the 
proposition to admit California. Mr. Hamlin's vote stands 
recorded in favor of Northern principles. 

He voted for the bill organizing the Territory of Oregon, con- 
taining the provisions of the ordinance of 1787, prohibiting 
slavery therein : and steadily opposed Mr. Douglas's amend- 
ment to extend the line of 30° 3Q' to the Pacific. 

During the continuance of the compromise struggle of 1850, 
Mr. Hamlin voted agunst Clay's omnibus bill, and most of its 
provisions. He voted for the admission of California with her 
constitution excluding slavery ; against the organization of the 
territories of New Mexico and Utah, without slavery-excluding 
provisions ; and for the abolition of the slave-trade in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. His vote is not recorded upon the final pas- 
sage of the Fugitive Slave Bill. 

On the 25th of July, 1851, Mr. Hamlin was re-elected to 



110 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

the United States Senate for the term of six years. He still 
continued to act with the Democratic party, having advocated 
the election of President Pierce, and supported his administra- 
tion up to the period that, under the lead of Senator Douglas, 
that party abrogated the Missouri Compromise by the passage 
of the Nebraska Bill in 1854. 

Senator Hamlin's celebrated speech in the summer of '56, in 
which he abandoned his old party associates, they having aban- 
doned their principles, will be remembered for the enthusiasm 
it excited throughout the North. It was the first gun of the 
Fremont campaign. In his own State Senator Hamlin instantly 
became the popular idol. Subsequent events mark how the 
people repay those who are true to them, and to the impulses of 
freedom. 

Mr. Hamlin was the nominee of the Republican party of 
Maine, for the governorship, during the canvass of 1856. His 
name created the greatest enthusiasm ; and Maine, the first of 
the States to lead off, in recording her opposition to Democratic 
treachery at Washington and Federal tyranny on the prairies of 
Kansas, rolled up a majority of 18,000 for the man of her 
choice- 
He was inaugurated Governor of Maine, January 7, 1857, 
resigned his seat in the United States Senate on the same day ; 
on the sixteenth of the same month he was reelected to the 
United States Senate for another term of six years, and on Feb- 
ruary 20, resigned the governorship and took his seat in the 
national capitol. The annals «^ politics do not show another 
instance of such honors showered so thickly upon a i« at<iman as 
in the case of Senator Hamlin. 



OP HANNIBAL HiJMLIN. Ill 



CHAPTER III. 

United States Seuatc — The Lecompton Contest — Mr. Hamlin's position — 
•• Mudsills " — Answer to Senator Hammond, of S. C. — Tlie Laborers of tlie 
Korili. 

TiiKOUGnouT the exciting Lecompton contest, Mr. Hamlin 
bore bimself gallantly in behalf of free labor. He spoke in 
answer to Senator Hammond's insolent speech of March, 1858, 
wherein the arrogant slaveocrat characterized the working-men 
of the free States as hirelings, and the "mudsills of society." 

Mr. Hamlin commenced his reply on the ninth of March and 
continued it through the next day. 

We make the following extracts : — 

TEE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION AND ITS INFAMY. 

Mr. Hamlin said — Mr. President : I do not often trespass on 
the patience of the Senate. I do so now from no personal inclina- 
tion of my own. Indeed, but for the obligation which is imposed 
upon me by the people whom I represent, I would forego, on the 
present occasion, any suggestions which I might deem it proper to 
make, and give a silent vote upon the views which have been pre- 
sented, and shall be presented, by other senators, upon the ques- 
tion now pending. The importance of the question, however, is 
such as imposes an obligation upon me to speak in vindication of 
tlie rights of the people I represent. The magnitude of the ques 
tion is a sufficient apology. 

Since I have held a seat in this body, inileed in the history of 
the whole country, I think no question has been presented to us for 
our deliberation and consideration, equal in importance and mag- 
nitude to that which is now before us. I regret, sir, I deeply re- 
gret, the aspect in which it is presented. In all this body, were I 
to put the question, liow many are there who approve the act 



112 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

■whu'li is about to be consummated here, in their judgment ? how 
many of all that hold seats here, could give an affirmative answer? 
The tyranny of party, the despotism of party, come in to the res- 
cue, and men here are about to do an act, which in their judgment 
and their hearts they disapprove. There is no despotism on earth 
like the despotism of party and party associations. We should, as 
freemen, do no act that does not command the approval of the 
judgment. 

"What is the act which a firm and settled majority in this Senate 
have determined shall be done ? In all the history of time, in all 
the records of the past, no act of equal political turpitude, in my 
judgment, can be found, save one to which I may allude. 



THE UNION. 

Mr. President : I have no laudations to bestow on this Union. 
It needs none. Its eulogy is written in the history of the past. I 
choose that my acts shall speak for me, rather than the words I 
utter. I would, sir, that it should remain a monument forever to 
guide the nations of the world. I Avould, sir, that this government 
should be perpetuated for all coming time ; and no act of mine, no 
instrumentality of mine, shall be exerted or given except for that 
perpeiualion. I would that our nation should stand a moral monu- 
ment to enlighten other nations ; but I cannot resist the conclusion 
that if we are to bow to the unlimited power of party despotism, 
if we are to do acfts, which, in our judgments and in our hearts we 
reprobate, the day, the hour, of our downfall is as certain as that of 
other nations which have preceded us. I do not mean that it will 
come now, or even within my day, or the day of the youngest of 
us. Great as may be the wrongs which you may perpetrate, the 
recuperative energies of our country may overcome them ; but, in 
the course of time, this incessant arrogation of executive and gov- 
ernmental power must produce its effect; and the institutions 
which we have reared, when their foundation shall have been sub- 
verted by executive power, nuist crumble and decay. That act 
which is before us, that bill upon which we are to vote, is one of 
the measures which is calculated, if not designed, to produce tliat 
event. Who that believes that nations, like individuals, must 
answer to a higher power for the wrongs they perpetrate, who 
that believes that the sins committed by a nation are to be answered 



OF HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 113 

for as the sins of an indiviclual, can doubt that, if tho present 
course of things be persisted in, a fearful retribution must 
follow ? 

x\fter alluding to the former and present positions of the 
South upon the tariff, and other questions, in illustration of the 
change of sentiment by those States, the Senator proceeds to 
show the designs of the founders of the government, and the 
action of the South at that period. 

SOUTHERN CUAXGE OF FRONT. 

I pass from the consideration of these two questions to one of a 
broader character. I pass to the consideration of what was the 
original design of our government in its foundation, and what was 
the action of the South at that period of time. I know the South 
has changed her views. I do not know that I complain of it. I 
know the elfect of habit, association, companionship, and interest, 
upon the lives, the conduct, and the opinions of men. I can be 
more charitable to those men of the South than I can be to their 
allies in the North ; and God forbid that I should say one word to 
or of them, when we have such a class existing in the North 
as we have all around us. No, sir ; I might say that I love them 
in comparison Avith the class of men at the North wha are faith- 
less to all the instincts of humanity, of association, of education, 
and all their surroundings. I know the force and the power 
of those influences. God knows what might be our opinions 
if we were born and educated at the South ; I do not. Had 
I been born in Turkey, I do not know that I might not have 
been a ^Mussulman. But it is humiliating to us, it is mortifying, 
but it is an admission to be made, that you train our politicians at 
the North, and make them subservient to all your behesfs. It is 
a humiliating admission to make, but still it belongs to the frailty 
of humanity, and I hope, in the progress of time, we shall be com- 
pensated for the admission by finding, when government is re- 
stored to its original position, that that class of people do not 
live entirely at the North. While it is a matter of regret, and of 
deep regret, that we have such a class of men among us, while I 
mourn over it, I am consoled with the reflection that light is 
dawning in the distant South; that the patriotic, the noble men 
8 



114 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

of that region are coming to the rescue, and telling us that they 
have hearts and sympathies that beat in unison with our own, and, 
that they, with us, ask only that this government be administered 
upon the principles on which our fathers founded it. 

But, sir, what was the early action of the government to which I 
Lave referred, and upon which our government was based ? It 
was the principle of freedom. I know too well, and I confess I 
feel somewhat embarrassed under the circumstances, that 1 can 
utter no new truth here ; but what, I ask, is the history of this gov- 
ernment in relation to the principles upon which it was founded ? 
I say that it was founded, and it was designed to be based on the 
principles of free government. AVhen our Constitution was ibrmed, 
nobody doubted, everybody expected, that the institution of slavery, 
so deleterious in its effects, would fade away. Times have changed. 
The invention of the cotton-gin made the production of cotton prof- 
itable ; and, with that power which belongs to the pocket-nerve, 
public sentiment has changed in the South, and too much in the 
North. The production of cotton became profitable, and with that 
profit came the (diange. A temporary and evanescent benefit has 
led to this change, not a permanent benefit. Madison told us, in 
the convention which framed the Constitution, that it was wrong to 
adm'it that man could hold property in man ; that ho would not 
incorporate that idea into the Constitution. We had the maxims 
and the teachings of Jefferson, and all the wisest and best men of 
the South against slavery. I have no time to stop now to quote 
authorities, they are 

" Thick as autumnal leaves." 

They all concurred in the doctrine that it was an institution that 
carried along with it blight and mildew ; and your eloquent Pink- 
ney, of Maryland, told you that it scorched the green earth upon 
wliich its footsteps fell. 

Under that view of the case, the ordinance from the brain of 
Thomas Jefferson, was adopted. In the precise form in which it 
passed into a legal enactment, I know it came from Nathan 
Dane, of New England ; but the idea was that of the South ; the 
principle was originated by Thomas Jefferson ; and the only dis- 
tinction between the restrictiou of Jefferson in 1784, and Dane, in 
1787, was this: Jefferson proposed that slavery should be prohib- 
ited from all your territories then belonging to the United States, 



OF HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 115 

and all that should be acquired. The proviso of Dane restricted it 
in the territories then belonging to the United States, and provided 
that fugitives from service should be surrendered. If the doctrine 
of Jefferson had been maintained as presented in 1784, there -n-ould 
have been quiet in the country, and none of the agitations which 
we have witnessed would have occurred. 

This was the doctrine of the South, then ; she presented it to us 
for our approval and adoption. How stands the South to-day ? 
She has repudiated the doctrines of her fathers, and comes here 
asserting that our government is founded on the great principle of 
human servitude, — a system that degrades the white man who 
labors beside the slave. 

REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 

"Mr. President, I come now to another point which, in my judg- 
ment, implies vastly more than legislative faith. I come to the re- 
peal of the Missouri Compromise. Whose measure was that ? 
From what section of the country did it come ? By whose Aoies 
was it imposed upon the country ? Every man knows — it is his- 
torical — that the Missouri Compromise was a southern measure. Its 
passage was celebrated by public meetings all over the South. 
They held it as their peculiar measure. It was, in truth, the sug- 
cestion of Mr. WcLane, from a southern State ; and it was adopted 
finally upon the suggestion of Mr. Pinckney, a Senator from a 
southern State. His life shows the fact. The letter which he 
wrote upon the occasion states that, in the committee of confer- 
ence between the two branches of Congress, he suggested it. Upon 
his suggestion it was adopted ; and then public meetings were held 
through all the South, and they were jubilant over its success 
Now, sir, one of their own men declared that it should be an act 
irrepealable. I do not contend that It was such except In good 
faith. The Missouri Compromise line was, therefore, the act of 
the South ; and in that act the North had always acquiesced. 
Who abrogated the restriction ? It was adopted by almost all the 
votes of the South ; and only here and there a man from the North 
to support It, and who were known no more forever, as will be thoso 
at the North who support this measure. It was a southern measure 
In essence and In substance. The North did not vote for it. Why ? 
Because it was a partial departure from the original design of the 



116 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

government ; because it did not come up to the doctrine of 1787. 
But after it had been adopted the North, for more than a third of a 
century, acquiesced in it. After the South had i-ecured, under that 
compromise, all the advantage that could accrue to her and her pe- 
culiar institutions, she comes into this Hall, and she asks, she de- 
mands, and she obtains, a repeal of all that was beneficial to the 
North. We are told by the Senator from South Carolina that we 
can rely upon the South ; that her plighted fai:h has never been 
broken ! Sir, I will not quote what is so familiar upon my lips in 
relation to the South, but I will quote it as to what they call the 
Di-mocratic party : " their fait!i is Puuic, and branded to a 
proverb." 

But, sir, It is not in a party aspect alone that I propose fo view 
this question. A broader and a wider view is before me. It is 
not the South as a party, and in a party aspect, that has violated 
this time-honored compact, and I say has violated her faith ; but 
she has extended her power to the court below. I think, on the 
whole, " the court below" is an appropriate term. She seized upon 
the Executive and bound him in her manacles. She holds the 
government in all its departments. You have got the legislative 
power in your control ; you have got the executive in your con- 
trol ; you have got the judiciary in your power. How you got 
the two latter I do not precisely undertake to say, — by political 
complicity and collusion, any how. Search all the ||-ecords of your 
country, examine all the messages that have ever been presented 
to us, and not one can be found where an Executive has under- 
taken to foreshadow the opinions of the judiciary, until you come 
to the inaugural address of the present President of the United 
States, — not one ; and in that political collusion and complicity, I 
affirm that the object was to rob the people and the States of the 
rights that belong to them. 

PROSTITUTION OF THE JUDICIARY. 

Now, sir, with how much grace, or with how much truth, can the 
Senator from South Corollna affirm that the plighted faith of the 
South has never been broken ? This opinion of the court — mark 
the word I use ; I do not call it the decision of the court, for I re- 
gard it only as the opinion of the judges individually — is given 
upon a question which they tell us gravely is not before them. 
They erect a structure for which they have no foundation. They 



OP HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 117 

gravely and judicially tell us that they have no juri?dirtion of (he 
matter, and that they volunteer an opinion as to what they would 
decide if the question was beibrc them. That is all there is of it; 
there is nothing more. I coneur with Justice McLean, who said 
that he would treat it as no decision at all. There is not a lawver 
in this body, there Is not a lawyer in the country, who does not 
know that when the court determine that they have no jurisdiction 
in the matter, they have no right to determine the question which 
lies behind the issue of jurisdiction. I regret, sir, I deeply regret, 
that that court should have gone outside of its appropriate juris- 
diction for the purpose of seeking an occasion on which to issue or 
make public their private opinions. I bad before looked at that 
court with high respect ; but I hold that they had no more right to 
decide upon that question than we have to decide for them. It 
was a political question purely ; and it is one of those questions in 
regard to which Thomas Jeflerson so early and so ably warned us 
against judicial interference. But why quote Thomas Jeflerson? 
He is obsolete on the other side of the Chamber. 

They had no more authority to decide a political question for us, 
than we had to decide a judicial question for thera. Keep each 
branch of the government within the sphere of its own duties. 
We make laws, they interpret them ; but it is not for them to tell 
us what are the limits within which we shall confine ourselves in 
our action ; or, in other words, what is a political constitutional 
right of this body, any more than it is for us to tell them what is a 
judicial right that belongs to tbem. Of all despotisms upon earth, 
the despotism of a judiciary is the worst. It is a life estate. When 
that court shall make the decision foreshadowed in this opinion, 
they will be regarded on the pages of history as exceeding in in- 
famy th." famed JefTreys, of England. His decisions did not un- 
dertake to grasp the liberties of a people, but were confined to 
individuals. Our court, broader in their grasp, undertake to usurp 
the rights of a nation. Jeffreys will be forgotten when the opinions 
of this court shall have grown Into a judicial decision. Sir, that 
will never be. There is a peculiar fact that belongs to that court; 
I have been unable to find a decision contravening the party in 
power. While I am no prophet, I can read when " coming events 
cast their shadows before." We are to have the power ; we are to 
restore the government to what our fathers made it ; we are to 
place it upon its original basis ; and the court will come back to 
the original basis. 



118 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



WHO CONTROLS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 

All parties, I have said, are directed more or less by certain in- 
fluences within their organization. The Democratic party, so 
called, is in the control of South Carolina. I remember when Mr. 
Calhoun offered his resolutions here, only a few years ago, in rela- 
tion to the powers of government over slavery in the territories. I 
refer to the resolutions which he offered about the days of the com- 
promise. The Senator from New York [Mr. Seward] remembers 
how they were laughed and scouted from the Senate. They are in 
the Senate to-day ; they are the basis of your Democratic party ; 
they are now triumphant in every branch of the government ; 
they are triumphant here ; they are triumphant in the other branch 
of Congress, one of its very worthy and distinguished members 
being its presiding officer. They are here by your action, and 
you fasten your power upon the Executive at the other end of the 
avenue. Democracy in 1858 means the nullification doctrines of 
South Carolina in times gone by. It is so. I say you have the 
Senate, and you have the Congress. I have no earthly doubt as to 
•what is to be the fate of this measure in this branch of the govern- 
ment. I have no doubt as to what will be its fate in the other 
House. I affirm, therefore, that you have got this branch of the 
government. That you have the Executive is clear. While he 
told his subordinate, the Governor of Kansas, that he must insist 
upon the submission of the Lecompton Constitution to the people 
for their vote of approval or rejection, he has yielded all, and tells 
you now that you must adopt the constitution, notwithstanding there 
is ten thousand majority against it. You have the Supreme Court, 
because they say, in their opinion, that, — " For more than a cen- 
tury before the adoption of the Constitution they had regarded ne- 
groes as beings of an inferior order, and possessed of no rights" — 
mark the words — " which a white man was bound to respect." 

Is there a beast that toils in any State, — I speak of beasts, — 
where legislation has not thrown around it a protecting care that it 
shall not be abused by its owner ? Is there a slave State where 
slaver)- exists intensified, where your legislation have not protected 
the rights of persons in the slave ? It is an inhuman expression, it 
is historically untrue besides. 

But, sir, what you call the Democracy have improved upon that 



OP HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 119 

doctrinij. If you -will pass this bill, (and wbo doubts that you •will?) 
they come to the same conclusion ; and they go further ; for, while 
tlie court decide that colored men have no rights that you are 
bound to respect, they affirm that majorities of white men in the 
territories have no rights that the Democratic party are bound to 
respect. That is the conclusion. It is the logical concision from 
your acts. The court, I thought, went a great way. It is a revolt- 
ing, — I repeat once more, — it is an inhuman expression. They 
5aid that was the sentiment of the revolutionary times. I mean to 
\luote them correctly. I say it is historically incorrect. But, im- 
proving on that doctrine, that black men, for a century before the 
Constitution, had no rights that a white man was bound to respect, 
modern Democracy claims that a majority of free white men in 
your territories have no rights that it is bound to respect. 

lilr Durkee. That is the doctrine of progress ? 

Mr. Hamlin. That is the doctrine of progress, as my friend 
says. Yes, sir, it is the doctrine of progress : but such a progress! 
I think it is that kind of progress that the boy made in going to his 
daily toils at school. There had been snow and rain, and the 
ground was very slippery, and he arrived at a very late hour. On 
being reprimanded by his instructor for not getting there earlier, he 
said that on taking a step forward, he always fell two steps behind. 
" Then pray, sir, how did you ever arrive ? " " Why, after strug- 
gling a long while, I turned around and went backwards." 
[Laughter.] 

The speaker proceeded to answer the insulting allusions of 
the South Carolinian, and thus rebuked his reference to Ncirth- 
ern worklng-mcn. The courteous tone of the Senator added to 
the force of the earnest sarcasm, -wherewith allusion was made 
to the source whence Mr. Hammond drew his conclusions rela- 
tive to the industrial classes of the North. 

THE LABORKUS OF THE NORTH. 

In my judgment, the Senator from South Carolina, — I assure 
him I say it in kindness, — has mistaken the character of our labor- 
ers and their position. I do not think he would designedly assign 
them a position to which they do not belong ; and I have said, that 
in my opinion, he has come to the conclusion that our laborers 
occupy precisely the same position as those whom be sees iu Lis 



120 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

own vicinity. I do not say that even that is so ; but I say such is 
my conclusion. I am frank to admit that I know very little of 
the character of the laborers who toil beside the slave, but I have 
seen something of it. I have seen what has satisfied me that they 
have little intelligence ; that they were poorly clothed ; and that, 
while they felt themselves above them, they were actually, in the 
social scale, below the slaves. I remember. Sir, that upon the banks 
of the Potomac, I once heard a negro taunt a white man, that he 
was so poor, that he had not a master ; and when I looked at the 
poor white man, I confess, I thought there was some truth in the 
taunt. 

Now, ray word for it, the Senator from South Carolina has mis- 
taken the character of our population, and our laborers. I stand 
here the representative of Northern laborers. I wish they had a 
better and abler representative in my stead ; but such as I am, they 
have sent me here ; such as I am I will vindicate their rights. 

The debate continued on the following day, "Wednesday, 
March 10. Mr. Hamlin thus proceeded to rebuke the insults 
of the haughty South Carolinian. 

When the Senator from South Carolina undertakes to draw 
imaginary distinctions between classes of laborers, he goes back to 
the old, the worn, the rotten, the discarded system of ages that have 
long since passed. I tell that Senator what is true, that we draw 
no imaginary distinctions between our different classes of laborers, 
— none whatever. " Manual laborers !" Well, Sir, who are the 
manual laborers of the North, that are degraded and placed 
beside the slave of the South by the Senator from South Carolina ? 
Who are our manual laborers ? Sir, all classes in our commu- 
nity are manual laborers ; and, to a greater or less extent, they are 
hireling manual laborers. They constitute, I affirm, a majority of 
our community, — those who labor for compensation. I do not 
know, I confess I cannot understand, that distinction which alloAvs a 
man to make a contract for the service of his brains, but denies 
hiui the right to make a contract for the service of his hands. 
There is no distinction between them. We draw none ; we make 
none. Who are that class of citizens in our community, who are 
its hirelings ? That is the term. I do not know whether he de- 
signs it as opprobrious ; but that is the term with which he desig 
nates our laborers of the North. This is modern Democracy ! 



OF HANNIBAL HAMLIN. ]21 

WIio are our " liirelinn; manual laborers " of the North ? T fan 
tell the Si'Uiitor the}- are not the niiulsills of our community. Tlicv 
arc 1 he men w!io clear away our forests. They are the men who 
make the green hill-sides blossom. They are the men who build 
our sliips, and who navigate them. They are the men who build 
our towns, and who inhabit them. They are the men who consti- 
tute the§reat mass of our community. Sir, they arc not only the 
])iilars that support our government, but they are the capitals that 
ailorn the very pillars. They arc not to be classed with the slave. 
Oin- laboring men have homes ; they have wives ; they have little 
oni's, dependent upon them for support and maintenance ; and 
they are just so many incentives, and so much stimulus, to action. 
The laboring man, with us, knows for whom he toils ; and when he 
toils, he knows he is to return to that home, where comfort and 
pleasure, and all the domestic associations, cluster around the social 
hearth-stone. Northern laborers are " hirelings," and are to be 
classed with the negro slave ! 

Besides that, the men who labor in our communities are the men 
whom we clothe with power. They are the men who exercise the 
prerogatives of the State. They are the men who, after having 
been clothed with power there, are sent abroad to represent us 
elsewhere. They do our legislation at home. They support the 
State. They are the State. They are men, — high-minded men. 
They read ; they watch yoip in these halls every day ; and, through 
all our community, the doings of this branch, and of the other, are 
as well understood, and perhaps even better, than we understand 
them ourselves. I afSrm that, throughout our community, the 
proceedings of Congress are more extensively and accurately read 
than even by ourselves. These are the men who are to be classed 
by the side of the slave ! I think it is true that in about every 
three generations, at most, the wheel entirely performs its revolu- 
tions. You rarely find a fortune continuing beyond three genera- 
tions, in this country, in the same family. 

That class of our community, constituting a very large majority, 
has been designated here as hireling laborers, — white slaves. 
Why, sir, does labor imply slavery ? Because they toil, because 
they pursue a course which enables them to support their wives 
and their families, even if it be by daily manual labor, does that 
necessarily imply servitude ? Far from it. I affirm that the great 
portion of our laborers at the North own their homes, and they 



122 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

labor to adorn them. They own their homes, and if you will visit 
them, you will find in many of ihcm a portion, at least, of the litera- 
ture of the times, which shows that they read ; you will find there 
evidences to satisfy you, beyond all doubt, that they are intelligent, 
and that they are, in truth and in fact, precisely what I have 
described them to be, — the pillars of the State, the State itself, 
and the very ornaments and capitals that adorn the columns. With 
(h-m the acquisition of knowledge is not a crime. 

I have quoted all that the Senator from South Carolina has said 
on this point, for the purpose of giving the widest circulation I can 
to the declarations he has made. He has mistaken, I doubt not, 
the character of our laborers by judging them from what he has 
seen in his own vicinity, and what, in my judgment, is produced by 
that very state of servitude which is there existing. It is my duty 
to vindicate our laborers. My only regret is that I can do it no 
more clliciently. 

Mr. Hamliu proceeds to review the history of the Demo- 
cratic party down from its formation, and the relations the 
South stood in regard to its principles and action. Pie con- 
trasted, in a forcible manner, the sentiments of the Jefferson 
Democracy, and those freedom-bating organizations which has 
usurped the honored name. 

The remainder of the speech is mostly occupied by a statis- 
tical statement, forcibly put, of the difference of products, 
exports, and imports between the two great sections of the 
Union. These statements are conclusive on the effects of slave 
institutions to deteriorate the material wealth and social progress 
of any community adopting them. 

The closing periods are filled with eloquent denunciation of 
the tyranny sought to be practised on Kansas. ' Alluding to the 
argument that the Lecompton swindle was made under the forms 
of law, Mr. Hamlin forcibly said : — 

Forms of law ! God knows there is nothing but form in it, — 
forms of law ! Long years ago the mother country undertook to 
oppress these colonies by forms of law, but not as unjustly as we 
have ruled the people of Kansas ; and she persecuted that great 
and noble patriot, John Hampden, under the forms of law, and for 
his love of liberty. There is one other act which has been perpe- 



OF HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 123 

frated under the forms of law, to which I will allude, and then I 
shall have done. 

Under the forms of law, despotism is created. Under the forms 
of law, all the wrongs of which the mind of man can conceive have 
been perpetrated. Under the forms of law, and in the name of 
liberty, liberty itself has been stricken down. In the name and 
under the forms of law, the Son of man was arraigned and stretched 
upon the cross. Under the forms of law, you are about to do an 
act here, unequalled in turpitude by anything that has been re- 
corded in all the progress of time, save that event to which I have 
just alluded. In all history, save the crucifixion of Christ, there is 
no act that will stxmd upon the record of its pages in after time, of 
eijual turpitude with this act. The purpose of it is to extend hu- 
man slavery ; and I may well inquire — 

" Is this the day for us to sow 
The soil of a virgin empire with slavery's seeds of woe; 
To feed with our fresh life-blood the old world's cast olf crime, 
Dropped like some moustrous early birth from the tired lap of time." 



124 LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 



CHAPTER IV. 

Nomination as Vice-President — Mr. Hamlin's experience fits him for the posi- 
siiion — Acceptance of Nomination — Public Serenade at Washington — Dis- 
turbance, &c. 

Mr. Hamlin has still three years of his term in the Senate 
to serve. He is a member of the Committee on Commerce and 
on the District of Columbia. His long legislative experience 
renilers him a most valuable colleague, and has admirably fitted 
him to preside over the body of which for nine years he has 
been a member. He is not a man of brilliant oratorical powers, 
but possesses decided executive and administrative faculties, 
which combined with ripe experience, will make him au impor- 
tant member of Mr. Lincoln's administration. 

The reception on Friday, the 18th of May, of the news of 
Mr. Hamlin's nomination, at Washington, created much feeling 
among his friends. His rooms were thronged on Saturday, 
and in the evening a public serenade was given him. He occu- 
])ies rooms at the Washington House, which on this occasion 
was illuminated from garret to cellar. The following report of 
the proceedings is taken from the special despatches to the New 
York Herald : — 

At half-past nine o'clock, the procession arrived in front of the 
hotel, and was greeted with three lusty cheers. After the inspiring 
air, " Ilail to the Chief," so familiar on similar occasions, had been 
pcrtbrnied by the band, loud calls were made for Mr. Hamlin. 

Mr. B. B. French then came forward on the balcony, amid a 
number of ladies and gentlemen, and said : — 

My friends, I have the pleasure of introducing Senator Hamlin, 
who has been nominated at the Chicago Convention to be one of 



OF HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 125 

the standartl-bearors of the Republican party. (Loud cliecrs.) 
We all know how well he will bear that standard. IIi> has become 
aluio.'t a citizen among us. He has been here a number ot' years, 
and my friends, we mean to keep him here four years from the -llh 
of March next. I now introduce him to you. 

SPEEcn OF nox. iiaxxibal iiamlin. 

Mr. Hamlin then came forward, amid great cheering, and spoke 
as follows : — 

Fellow-Citi-ens: Sympathizing with you in principles which 
have united us, I am happy to greet you on this occasion. I am 
pleased to mingle my thoughts with yours in that tribute which you 
pay to a common cause. You have come, my friends, for the pur- 
pose of congratulating each other upon the result of the action of 
our friends who have met in council at Chicago, the communication 
of whose decision has come to us over the telegraphic wires. Un- 
solicited, unexpected, and undesired, the nomination has been con- 
ferred upon me. Unsolicited as it was, I accept it, with the 
responsibilities which attach to it, — (applause,) — in the earnest and 
ardent hope that the cause, which is superior to men, shall receive 
no detriment at my hands. (Cheers, and a voice, "some more ap- 
plause.") You are here to pay a tribute to that man who is to bear 
your standard on to what we hope and believe a triumphant victory. 
(Applause.) Y''ou are here to pay a tribute to that young giant of 
the West, who comes from that region where the star of empire 
has already culminated. You come to pay a tribute to that man 
who is not only the representative man of your- principles, but the 
representative man of the people — (cheers) — that man who is iden- 
tified in all your interests by his early associations In life, who 
sympathizes justly and truly with the labor of all this broad laud, 
himself Inured to toil. (Applause.) 

Capacious, comprehensive, a statesman incorruptible, a man 
over whom the shade of suspicion has never cast a reproach. (Con- 
tinued applause.) But what is the mission, my friends, that Is 
committed to our hands ? It Is to bring back your government lo 
the position, to bring back the principles and practices of its fathers 
and founders, and administer In the light of their wisdom. It is to 
purge the government of Its corruptions, — of Its corruptions, com- 
pared with which those in any other administration pale into utter 
insignificance. (Cheers, and a voice, " three cheers for the stick 



12G LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES 

and rule.") It is to maintain the integrity of the Union, with the 
just rights of all the States ; and, -while the just rights of all the 
States are maintained, it is also to maintain that States shall not 
interfere in territories outside of their own jurisdiction. (Ap- 
plause.) 

And it is to give new aids to commerce across the trackless 
ocean, — it is to foster and give new life to the industry of this broad 
land. What is it but the industry of our country that upholds your 
government ? What is it but the labor of your country that .spreads 
out) our canvass on the distant sea? AVliat is it but labor that 
delves in your mines, and toils in your workshops, and upholds the 
government under which you live ? (Cheers.) AVho is there that 
should receive the fostering care and kind regards of the govern- 
ment if it be not the man that toils, and adds by his industry to the 
wealth of the republic ? This is the mission that the Republican 
party, under the guidance of Heaven, are to perform and discharge. 
(Cheers.) They are to do that, and then they will transmit to 
those who shall come after them our government unimpaired, and 
ic will remain, and remain forever, the land where the oppressed of 
every clime and land, of every creed, may come and receive the 
protection of our lands and our liberty regulated by law. (" Hip, 
hip, hurrah," and cheers.) 

SPEECH OF MR. CAMPBELL, OF PEXXSYLVAXIA. 

After music from the band, Mr. Campbell, member of Con- 
gress, from Pennsylvania, was introduced. He said : — 

I claim the right to express the sentiment of my section upon 
the nomination recently made at Chicago. (Cheers.) I want to 
say, first, my State is Union-loving and conservative to the core. 
She believes that the mission of this great republic, as originated 
by the fathers, is one of peace and liberty, but that this Democratic 
party now in power has been arrayed against liberty, the Revolu- 
tionary precepts rights, and the interests of the country. (Applau.se 
and laughter.) She has therefore looked around her for some other 
man, and has heard of a citizen of Kentucky, born on her soil, a 
pioneer of the Western wilderness,— she has heard of the nomina- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln with unfeigned gratification. (Ap})lause.) 
She believes that Abraham Lincoln is the man for the time, a d 
marches breast u]^ with the advancing wave of civilization and lib- 



OP HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 127 

erty. He then went on to eulogize the platform upon which he 
stands, which he (Mr. Campbell) said protected the iron interests of 
Pennsylvania, and would build up her manufacturers, and pledged 
the Keystone State to the nominees of the Chicago Convention. 

From the Washington House the band and the attending 
crowd proceeded up Pennsylvania Avenue, five hundred strong, 
and thence up Eighth street to the quarters of Senator Trum- 
bull, opposite the G-^neral Post-office. About half the crowd 
■were Democrats. 

SPEECH OF SEXATOR TRUMBULL. 

Senator Trumbull being introduced to the meeting, addressed it 
in an earnest and somewhat lengthy speech in support of the great 
work done for the Republican party at Chicago. He had known 
Abraham Lincoln for twenty years. A native of Kentucky, he 
was brought over when an infiint into Indiana. Thence, with his 
axe on his shoulder, he went into Illinois, where he hewed his way 
into distinction. He studied and for a time practised the business 
of a land surveyor, then he entered into the study of the law, and 
rapidly rose to the high distinction of the ablest lawyer in the 
Northwest. 

They call him " Old Abe.," said Mi'. Trumbull, and yet he is in 
the prime of life, — about fifty-one years old. He is a giant in 
stature, six feet three inches high, and every inch a man. (A 
voice — " Not high enough to be President.") Yes, high enough to 
be President, and he will be President. (Hurrah.) He is a giant, 
and without the prefix of " Little " to it. (Hurrah.) A giant in in- 
tellect as well as in stature. (A voice — " Where is Harper's Ferry.") 
I tell you, my friends, that the prairies of Illinois are all ablaze to- 
night with the fires of enthusiasm. (Cries of " Is Fred Douglas in 
there?" and "Abe Lincoln is the man who met Stephen A. 
Douglas.") Yes, and he was defeated. (" Three cheers for 
Douglas ! " and they were given by the outsiders of the crowd, 
" Three groans for Lincoln," and they were given. The insiders 
then demanded " Three cheers for Lincoln ! " and they were given 
with a will.) 

Mr. Trumbull then explained, that in the Illinois contest of 1858, 
while Douglas carried the legislature, Lincoln had the popular vote 



128 LIFE OP HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 

by four thousand majority ; and be ■will more than doul)Ie it in 
November, — (Oh, gas!" "Where is John Brown ?")— and I tell 
you he will make a clean sweep of every State west of the Alle- 
ghanies. (" Ilow about poor old Seward ? ") Mr. Seward is a 
statesman and a patriot, and his whole heart is with onr great 
cause. 

Mr. Trumbull continued for sometime longer, amidst frequent 
interruptions from the outsiders, cheers for Douglas, inquiries for 
John Brown. &c., &c. Finally, Mr. Trumbull called for " Three 
cheers for Lincoln and Hamlin," which were heartily given, fol- 
lowed by " Three for Trumbull." 

SPKECn OF MR. WASHBURXE, OF ILLINOIS — ATTACK OX THE 
MEETING. 

Hon. Elihu Washburne, of Illinois, was next introduced to the 
meeting, and in a bold, clear, strong voice was entering upon a eu- 
logistic speech of the life and character, public and private, of Mr. 
Lincoln, when a few stray brickbats and stones fell in among his 
audience, from the direction of the Patent Office, when instantly 
there was a general stampede in the opposite direction, the musicians 
of the band being among the first to take to their heels. The 
steadfast Republicans, immediately, about the doorstep stood their 
ground, and presently Malor Berreti's police came up and told the 
speaker to go on, for that the meeting would be protected. 

Mr. Washburne meantime maintained his stand upon the stoop, 
and in a few minutes, comparative order being restored, he resumed 
his speech, saying, that when the time had come that a jmblic meet- 
ing on public affairs, could not be held in the federal capital with- 
out a riotous disturbance, it was time for a sweeping reform which 
would drive these lawless parasites from the footstool of power. 
Mr. Washburne concluded with a high eulogium of Mr. Hamlin, 
when the meeting, after a round or two of applause, quietly 
dispersed. 



SPEECHES 

OF 

HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



OF ILLINOIS. 



SPEECHES 



SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY AND ITS FALLACIES. 

HON. ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS, CHI- 
« CAGO, JULY 10, 1858. 

Douglas opened the senatorial canvass by a speech the 
evening before the delivery of the one that follows. It was in 
answer to the speech made by Mr. Lincoln in accepting the nomi- 
nation of the Republican Convention at Springfield, June 17. 
Judge Douglas was not present. Mr. Lincoln was introduced 
by C. L. Wilson, Esq., and as he made his appearance he was 
greeted with a perfect storm of applause. For some moments 
the enthusiasm continued unabated. At last, when by a wave 
of his hand partial silence was restored, Mr. Lincoln said — 

DOUGLAS AND HIS CRIMEAN ENEMIES. 

My Fellow-Citizens : On yesterday evening, upon the 
occasion of the reception given to Senator Douglas, I was fur- 
nished with a seat very convenient for hearing him, and was 
otherwise very courteously treated by him and his friends, and 
for which I thank him and them. During the course of his 
remai'ks, my name was mentioned in such a way as, I suppose, 
renders it at least not improper that I should make some sort of 
replj' to him. I shall not attempt to follow him in the precise 
order in which he addressed the assembled multitude upon that 
occasion, though I shall perhaps do so in the main. 



132 THE SPEECHES OP 

There was one question to which he asked the attention of 
the crowd, which I deem of somewhat less importance — at 
least of propriety for me to dwell upon — than the others, 
which he brought in near the close of his speech, and which I 
think it would not be entirely proper for me to omit attending 
to ; because if I were not to give some attention to it now, I 
should probably forget it altogether. While I am upon this 
subject, allow me to say that I do not intend to indulge in that 
inconvenient mode sometimes adopted in public speaking, of 
reading from documents ; but I shall depart from that rule so 
far as to read a little scrap from his speech, which notices this 
first topic of which I shall speak, -^ that is, provided I can find 
it in the paper. 

" I have made up my mind to appeal to the people against 
the combination that has been made against me ! the Republican 
leaders having formed an alliance, an unholy and unnatural 
alliance, with a portion of unscrupulous federal office-holders. 
I intend to fight that allied army wherever I meet them. I 
know they deny the alliance, but yet these men who are trying 
to divide the Democratic party for the purpose of electing a 
Republican Senator in my place, are just as much the agents 
and tools of the supporters of Mr. Lincoln. Hence I shall deal 
with this allied army just as the Russians dealt with the allies at 
Sebastopol, — that is, the Russians did not stop to inquire, 
when they fired a broadside, whether it hit an Englishman, a 
Frenchman, or a Turk. Nor will I stop to inquire, nor shall I 
hesitate, whether my blows shall hit these Republican leaders or 
their allies, who are holding the federal oflSces and yet acting in 
concert with them." 

Well, now, gentlemen, is not that very alarming? Just to 
think of it ! right at the outset of his canvass, I, a poor, kind, 
amiable, intelligent gentleman, I am to be slain in this way. 
Why, my friend, the Judge, is not only, as it turns out, not a 
dead lion, nor even a living one, — he is the rugged Russian 
Bear ! 

But if they will have it, — for he says that we deny it, — 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 133 

that there is any such alliance as he says there is, — and I don't 
propose hanging very much upon this question of veracity, — 
but if he will have it that there is such an alliance, — that the 
Administration men and we are allied, and we stand in the atti- 
tude of English, French, and Turk, he occupying the position 
of the Russian, in that case, I beg that he will indulge us while 
we barely suggest to him that these allies took Sebastopol. 

TUE ALLIANCE. 

Gentlemen, only a few more words as to this alliance. For 
my part, I have to say, that whether there be such an alliance 
depends, so far as I know, upon what may be a right definition 
of the term alliance. If fur the Republican party to see the 
other great party to which they are opposed divided among 
themselves, and not try to stop the division and rather be glad 
of it, — if that is an alliance, I confess I am in ; but if it is 
meant to be said that the Republicans had formed an alliance 
going beyond that, by which there is contribution of money or 
sacrifice of principle on the one side or the other, so far as the 
Republican party is concerned, if there be any such thing, I 
protest that I neither know anything of it, nor do I believe it. 
I will, however, say, — as I think this branch of the argument 
is lugged in, — I would, before I leave it, state, for the benefit 
of those concerned, that one of those same Buchanan men did 
once tell me of an argument that he made for his opposition to 
Judge Douglas. He said that a friend of our Senator Douglas 
had been talking to him, and had, among other things, said to 
him : " Why, you don't want to beat Douglas ? " " Yes," said 
he, " I do want to beat him, and I will tell you why. I believo 
his original Nebraska bill was right in the abstract, but it was 
wrong in the time that it was brought forward. It was wrong 
in the application to a Territory in regard to which the question 
had been settled ; it was brought forward at a time when nobody 
asked him ; it was tendered to the South when the South had 
not asked for it, but when they could not well refuse it ; and 
for this same reason he forced that question upon our party ; it 



134 THE SPEECHES OF 

has sunk the best men all over the nation, everywhere ; and 
now, when our President, struggling with the difficulties of this 
man's getting up, has reached the very hardest point to turn in 
the case, he deserts bim, and I am for putting him where he will 
trouble us no more." 

Now, gentlemen, that is not my argument, — that is not my 
argument at all. I have only been stating to you the argument 
of a Buchanan man. You will judge if there is any force in it. 

WUERE IS SQUATTEE SOVEKEIGNTT ? 

Popular sovereignty ! everlasting popular sovereignty ! Let 
tis for a moment inquire into this vast matter of popular sov- 
ereignty. AVhat is popular sovereignty ? We recollect that at 
an early period in the history of this struggle, there was another 
name for the same thing, — squatter sovereignty. It was not 
exactly popular sovereignty, but squatter sovereignty. What 
do those terms mean ? What do those terms mean when used 
now? And vast credit is taken by our friend, the Judge, in 
regard to his support of it, when he declares the last years of 
his life have been, and all the future years of his life shall be, 
devoted to this matter of popular sovereignty. What is it ? 
Why, it is the sovereignty of the people ! What was squatter 
sovereignty ? I suppose, if it had any significance at all, it 
was the right of the people to govern themselves, to be sov- 
ereign in their own affairs, while they were squatted down in a 
country not their own, while they had squatted on a Territory 
that did not belong to them, in the sense that a State belongs to 
the people who inhabit it, — when it belonged to the nation, — 
such right to govern themselves was called "squatter sov- 
ereignty." 

Now I wish you to mark. What has become of that squatter 
sovereignty ? What has become of it ? Can you get anybody 
to tell you now that the people of a Territory have any authority 
to govern themselves, in regard to this mooted question of 
slavery, before they form a State Constitution ? No such thing 
at all, although there is a general running fire, and although 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 135 

ttiere has been a hurrah made in every speech on that side, 
assuming that policy liad given the people of a Territory the 
right to govern themselves upon this question ; yet the point is 
dodged. To-day it has been decided, — no more than a year ago 
it was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
is insisted upon to-day, that the people of a Territory have no 
right to exclude slavery from a Territory ; that if any one man 
chooses to take slaves into a Territory, all the rest of the people 
have no right to keep them out. This being so, and this deci- 
sion being made one of the points that the Judge approved, and 
one in the approval of which he says he means to keep me down, 
— put me down I should not say, for I have never been up. 
He says he is in favor of it, and sticks to it, and expects to win 
his battle on that decision, which says that there is no such 
thing as squatter sovereignty ; but that any one man may take 
slaves into a Territory, and all the other men in the Territory 
may be opposed to it, and yet by reason of the Constitution they 
cannot prohibit it. When that is so, how much is left of this 
vast matter of squatter sovereignty, I should like to know ? 

EFFECTS OF DRED SCOTT. 

When we get back, we get to the point of the right of the 
people to make a constitution. Kansas was settled, for example, 
in 1854. It was a Territory yet, without having formed a 
constitution, in a very regular way, for three years. All this 
time negro slavery could be taken in by any few individuals, 
and by that decision of the Supreme Court, which the Judge 
approves, all the rest of the people cannot keep it out ; but 
when they come to make a constitution they may say they will 
not have slavery. But it is there ; they are obliged to tolerate 
it some way, and all experience shows it will be so, — for they 
will not take the negro slaves and absolutely deprive the owners 
of them. All experience shows this to be so. All that space of 
time that runs from the beginning of the settlement of the Ter- 
ritory until there is sufficiency of people to make a State consti- 
tution, — all that portion of time popular sovereignty is given up. 



136 THE SPEECHES OP 

Tlie seal is absolutely put down upon it by the court decision, 
and Judge Douglas jiuts his own upon the top of that, yet he 
is appealing to the people to give him vast credit for his devotion 
to popular sovereignty. 

GENUINE POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

Again, when we get to the question of the right of the people 
to form a State constitution as they please, to form it with 
slavery or without slavery, — if that is anything new, I confess I 
don't know it. Has there ever been a time when anybody 
said that any other than the people of a Territory itself should 
form a constitution ? What is now in it that Judge Douglas 
should have fought several years of his life, and pledge himself 
to fight all the remaining years of his life for? Can Judge 
Douglas find anybody on earth that said that anybody else 
should form a constitution for a people ? [A voice — *' Yes."] 
Well, I should like you to name him ; I should like to know 
who he was. [Same voice, " John Calhoun."] 

Mr. Lincoln — No, sir, I never heard of even John Cal- 
houn saying such a thing. He insisted on the same principle 
as Judge Douglas ; but his mode of applying it, in fact, was 
wrong. It is enough for my purpose to ask this crowd, when 
ever a Republican said anything against it? They never said 
anything against it, but they have constantly spoken for it ; and 
whosoever will undertake to examine the platform, and the 
speeches of responsible men of the party, and of irresponsible 
men, too, if you please, will be unable to find one word from 
anybody in the Republican ranks opposed to that popular sover- 
eignty which Judge Douglas tliinks that he has invented. I 
suppose that Judge Douglas will claim, in a little while, that he 
is the inventor of the idea that the people should govern them- 
selves; that nobody ever thought of such a thing until he 
brought it forward. We do not remember, that in that old 
Declaration of Independence, it is said that " AVe hold these 
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 137 

rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness ; that to secure these rights, governments arc insti- 
tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent 
of the governed." There is tlft origin of popular sovereignty. 
Who, then, shall come in at this day and claim that he in- 
vented it ? 

JUDGE DOUGLAS AND THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION. 

The Lecorapton Constitution connects itself with this ques- 
tion, for it is in this matter of the Lecompton Constitution that 
our friend Judge Douglas claims such vast credit. I agree, 
that in opposing the Lecompton Constitution, so far as I can 
perceive, he was right. I do not deny that at all ; and, gentle- 
men, you will readily see why I could not deny it even if I 
wanted to. But I do not wish to ; for all the Republicans in 
the nation opposed it, and they would have opposed it just as 
much without Judge Douglas's aid as with it. Tliey had all 
taken ground against it long before he did. Wby, the reason 
that he urges against that Constitution, I urged against him a 
year before. I have the printed speech in my hand. The 
argument that he makes, why that Constitution should not be 
adopted, that the people were not fairly represented nor allowed 
to vote, I pointed out in a speech a year ago, which I hold in 
my hand now, that no fair chance was to be given to the people. 
[" Read it," "read it."] I shall not waste your time by trying 
to read it. ["Read it," "read it."] Gentlemen, reading 
from speeches is a very tedious business, particularly for an old 
man that .has to put on spectacles, and more so if the man be 
so tall that he has to bend over to the light. 

WHO DEFEATED THE LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION ? 

A little more, now, as to this matter of popular sovereignty 
and the Lecompton Constitution. The Lecompton Con-stitution, 
as the Judge tells us, was defeated. The defeat of it was a 
good thing or it was not. He thinks the defeat of it was a 
good thing, and so do I, and we agree in that. Who defeated it? 

A Voice — "Judge Douglas." 



138 THE SPEECHES OP 

Mr. Lincoln — Yes, he furnished himself, and if you sup- 
pose he coutrolled the other Democrats that went with him, he 
furnished three votes, while the llepublicans furnished twenty. 

That is what he did to defAt it. In the House of Repre- 
sentatives he and his friends furnished some twenty votes, and 
the Republicans furnished ninety odd. Now who was it that 
did the work." 

A voice — "Douglas." 

Mr. Lincoln — Why, yes, Douglas did it ! To be sure he 
did. 

Let us, however, put that proposition another way. The 
Republicans could not have done it without Judge Douglas. 
Could he have done it without them ? Which could have come 
the nearest to doing it without the other ? 

A voice — " Who killed the bill ? " 

Another voice — " Douglas." 

jMr. Lincoln — Ground was taken against it by the Republi- 
cans long before Douglas did it. The proportion of opposition 
to that measure is about five to one. 

A voice — " Why don't they come out on it? " 

Mr. Lincoln — You don't know what you are talking about, 
my friend. I am quite willing to answer any gentleman in the 
crowd who asks an intelligent question. 

Now who, in all this country, has ever found any of our 
friends of Judge Douglas's way of thinking, and who have acted 
upon this main question, that has ever thought of utterin"' a 
word in behalf of Judge Trumbull ? 

A voice — " We have." 

Mr. Lincoln — I defy you to show a printed resolution passed 
in a Democratic meeting, — I take it upon myself to defy any 
man to show a printed resolution of a Democratic meetin,"-, lari^e 
or small, in favor of Judge Trumbull, or any of the five to one 
Republicans who beat that bill. Everything must be for the 
Democrats ! They did everything, and the five to one that 
really did the thing, they snub over, and they do not seem to 
remember that they have an existence upon the face of the 
eaith. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 139 

THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT. 

Gentlemen, I fear that I shall become tedious. I leave this 
brunch of the subject to take hold of another. I take up that 
part of Judge Douglas's speech in which he respectfully attended 
to me. 

Judge Douglas made two points upon my recent speech at 
Springfield. lie says they are to be the issues of this campaign. 
The first one of these points he bases upon the language in a 
speech which I delivered at Springfield, which I believe I can 
quote correctly from memory. I said there that " we are now 
far into the fifth year since a policy was instituted for the avowed 
object, and with the confident promise, of putting an end to sla- 
very agitation ; under the operation of that policy, that agitation 
had only not ceased, but had constantly augmented." " I be- 
lieve it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. ' A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I be- 
lieve this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and 
half free." " I do not' expect the Union to be dissolved" — I 
am quoting from my speech — " I do not expect the house to 
fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become 
all one thing or the other. Either the opponents of slavery will 
arrest the spread of it and place it where the public mind shall 
rest, in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, 
or its advocates will push it forward until it shall become alike 
lawful in all the States, North as well as South." 

What is the paragraph ? In this paragraph which I have 
quoted in your hearing, and to which I ask the attention of all. 
Judge Douglas thinks he discovers great political heresy. I 
want your attention particularly to what he has inferred from it. 
He says I am in favor of making all the States of this Union 
uniform in all their internal regulations ; that in all their do- 
mestic concerns I am in favor of making them entirely uniform. 
He draws this inference from the language I have quoted to 
you. He says that I am in favor of making war by the North 
upon the South for the extinction of slavery ; that I am also in 



140 THE SPEECHES OP 

favor of inviting (as he expresses it) the South to a war tipon 
the North, for the purpose of nationalizing slavery. Now, it is 
singular enough, if you will carefully read that passage over, 
that I did not say that I was in favor of anything in it. I only 
said what I expected would take place. I made a prediction 
only, — it may have been a foolish one, perhaps. I did not even 
say that I desired that slavery should be put in course of ulti- 
mate extinction. I do say so now, however, so there need be 
no longer any difficulty about that. It may be written down in 
the great speech. 

THE POPULAR MIND FOR THE EXTINCTION OF SLAVERY. 

Gentlemen : Judge Douglas informed you that this speech of 
mine was probably carefully prepared. I admit that it was. I 
am not master of language; I have not a fine education; I am 
not capable of entering into a disquisition upon dialectics, as I 
believe you call it ; but I do not believe the language I em- 
ployed bears any such construction as Judge Douglas puts 
upon it. But I don't care about a quibble in regard to words. 
I know what I meant, and I will not leave this crowd in doubt, 
if I can explain it to them, what I really meant in the use of 
that paragraph. 

I am not, in the first place, unaware that this Government 
has endured eighty-two years, half slave and half free. I know 
that. I am tolerably well acquainted with the history of the 
country, and I know that it has endured eighty-two years, half 
slave and half free. I believe — and that is what I meant to 
allude to there — I believe it has endured, because during all 
that time, until the introduction of the Nebraska Bill, tbe pub- 
lic mind did rest all the time in the belief that slavery was in 
course of ultimate extinction. That was what gave us the cest 
that we had through that period of eighty-two years; at least, 
so I believe. I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as 
any Abolitionist, — I have been an Old Line Whig, — I have 
always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this 
new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began. I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 141 

always believed that everybody was against it, and that it was 
in course of ultimate extinction. [Pointing to Mr. Browning, 
who stood near by.] Browning thought so ; the great mass of 
the nation have rested in the belief that slavery was in course 
of ultimate extinction. They had reason so to believe. 

The adoption of the Constitution and its attendant history 
led the people to believe so ; and such was the belief of the 
fraraers of the Constitution itself. Why did those old men, about 
the time of the adoption of the Constitution, decree that slavery 
should not go into the new territory, where it had not already 
gone ? Why declare that within twenty years the African slave- 
trade, by which slaves are supplied, might be cut off by Con- 
gress ? Why were all these acts ? I might enumerate more of 
these acts, — but enough. What were they but a clear indica- 
tion that the franiers of the Constitution intended and expected 
the ultimate extinction of that institution ? And now, when I 
say, as I said in my speech that Judge Douglas has quoted 
from, when I say that I think the opponents of slavery will 
resist the farther spread of it, and place it where the public 
mind shall rest with the belief that it is in course of ultimate 
extinction, I only mean to say, that they will place it where the 
founders of this Government originally placed it. 

I have said a hundred times, and I have now no inclination 
to take it back, that I believe there is no right, and ought to be 
no inclination in the people of the free States to enter into the 
slave States, and interfere with the question of slavery at all. I 
have said that always ; Judge Douglas has heard me say it, — 
if not quite a hundred times, at least as good as a hundred 
times ; and when it is said that I am in favor of interfering 
•with slavery where it exists, I know it is unwarranted by any^ 
thing I have ever intended, and, as I believe, by anything I 
have ever said. If, by any means, I have ever used language 
which could fairly be so construed, (as, however, I believe I 
never have,) I now correct it. 

So much, then, for the inference that Judge Douglas draws, 
that I am in favor of setting the sections at war with one 



142 THE SPEECHES OF 

anotber. I know tbat I never meant any such thing, and I 
believe that no fair mind can infer any such thing from any- 
thing I have ever said. 

LTXCOLN ON CENTRALIZATION. 

Now in relation to his inference that I am in favor of a gen- 
eral consolidation of all the local institutions of the various 
States. I ■will attend to that for a little while, and try to 
inquire, if I can, how on earth it could be that any man could 
draw such an inference from anything I said. I have said, 
very many times, in Judge Douglas's hearing, that no man 
believed more than I in the principle of self-government ; that 
it lies at the bottom of all my ideas of just government, from 
beginning to end. I have denied that his use of that term 
applies properly. But for the thing itself, I deny that any man 
has ever gone ahead of me in his devotion to the principle, 
whatever he may have done in efficiency in advocating it. I 
think that I have said it in your bearing, — that I believe each 
individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself 
and the fruit of bis labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with 
any other man's rights, — that each community, as a State, has 
a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within 
tbat State that interferes with the right of no other State, and 
tbat the General Government, upon principle, has no right to 
interfere with anything other than that general class of things 
that does concern the whole. I have said that at all times. I 
have said as illustrations, tbat I do not believe in the right of 
Illinois to interfere with the cranberry laws of Indiana, the 
oyster laws of Virginia, or the liquor laws of Maine. I have 
said these things over and over again, and I repeat them here 
as my sentiments. 

How is it, then, that Judge Douglas infers, because I hope 
to see slavery put where the pubiic mind shall rest in the belief 
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, that I am in favor 
of Illinois going over and interfering with the cranberry laws of 
ludiana ? What can authorize him to draw any such infer- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. • 143 

ence ? I suppose tJiere might be one thing that at least ena- 
bled him to draw such an inference that would not be true with 
me or many others, that is, because he looks upon all this mat- 
ter of slavery as an exceedingly little thing, — this matter of 
keeping one sixth of the population of the whole nation in a 
state of oppression and tyranny unequalled in the world. He 
looks upon it as being an exceedingly little thing, — only equal 
to the question of the cranberry laws of Indiana, — as some- 
thing having no moral question in it, — as something on a par 
with the question of whether a man shall pasture his land with cat- 
tle, or plant it with tobacco, — so little and so small a thing, 
that he concludes, if I could desire that if anything should be 
done to bring about the ultimate extinction of that little thing, 
I must be in favor of bringing about an amalgamation of all 
the other little things in the Union. Now, it so happens, — 
and there, I presume, is the foundation of this mistake, — that 
the Judge thinks thus ; and it so happens that there is a vast 
portion of the American people that do not look upon that mat- 
ter as being this very little thing. Tliey look upon it as a vast 
moral evil ; they can prove it as such by the writings of those 
who gave us the blessings of liberty which we enjoy, and that 
thoy so looked upon it, and not as an evil merely confining itself 
to the States where it is situated ; and while we agree that, by 
the Constitution we assented to, in the States where it exists we 
have no right to interfere with it, because it is in the Constitu 
tion ; and we are by both duty and inclination to stick by that 
Constitution, in all its letter and spirit, from beginning to end. 

So much, then, as to my disposition, my wish, to have all the 
State legislatures blotted out, and to have one consolidated 
government, and a uniformity of domestic regulations in all the 
States, by which, I suppose, it is meant, if we raise corn here, 
we must make sugar-cane grow here too, and we must make 
those which grow North grow in the South. All this, I sup- 
pose, he understands I am in favor of doing. Now, so much 
for all this nonsense, — for I must call it so. The Judge can 
have no issue with me on a question of establishing uniformity 
in the domestic regulations of the States. 



144 THE SPEECHES OP 



TUB DRED SCOTT DECISION, AND ITS VALUE. 

A little now on tbe other point, — the Dred Scott decision. 
Another of the issues, he says, that is to be made with me, is 
upon his devotion to the Dred Scott decision, and my opposition 
to it. 

I have expressed heretofore, and I now repeat, my opposition 
to the Dred Scott decision, but I should bo allowed to state the 
nature of that opposition, and I ask your indulgence while I do 
so. What is fairly implied by the term Judge Douglas has 
used, " Resistance to the decision ? " I do not resist it. If I 
wanted to take Dred Scott from his master, I would be interfer- 
ing with property, and that terrible diflBculty that Judge Doug- 
las speaks of, of interfering with property, would arise. But I 
am doing no such thing as that, but all that I am doing is refus- 
ing to obey it as a political rule. If I were in Congress, and a 
vote should come up on a question whether slavery should be 
prohibited in a new territory, in spite of the Dred Scott decision, 
I would vote that it should. 

That is what I would do. Judge Douglas said, last night, 
that, before the decision, he might advance his opinion, and it 
might be contrary to the decision when it was made ; but, after 
it was made, he would abide by it until it was reversed. Just 
so ! We let this property abide by the decision, but we will 
try to reverse that decision. We will try to put it where Judge 
Douglas would not object, for he says he will obey it until it is 
reversed. Somebody has to reverse that decision, since it is 
made, and we mean to reverse it, and we mean to do it peace- 
ably. 

What are the uses of decisions of courts? They have two 
uses. As rules of property, they have two uses. First, they 
decide upon the question before the court. They decide, ia 
this case, that Dred Scott is a slave. Nobody resists that. 
Not only that, but they say to everybody else that persons 
standing just as Dred Scott stands is as he is. That is, they 
say that, when a (Question comes up upon another person, it 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 145 

will be so decided again, unless the court decides in another 
way, unless the court overrules its decision. Well, we mean 
to do what we can to have the court decide the other way. 
That is one thing we mean to try to do. 

"resistance to the supreme court." 

The sacredness that Judge Douglas throws around this 
decision, is a degree of sacredness that has never been before 
thrown around any other decision. I have never heard of such 
a thing. Why, decisions apparently contrary to that decision, 
or that good lawyers thought were contrary to that decision, 
have been made by that very court before. It is the first of its 
kind ; it is an astonisher in legal history. It is a new wonder 
of the world. It is based upon falsehood, in the main, as to the 
facts ; allegations of facts upon which it stands are not facts at 
all, in many instances, and no decision made on any question, — 
the first instance of a decision made under so many unfavorable 
circumstances, — thus placed, has ever been held by the profes- 
sion as law, and it has always needed confirmation before the 
lawyers regarded it as settled law. But Judge Douglas will 
have it that all hands must take this extraordinary decision, 
made under these extraordinary circumstances, and give their 
vote in Congress in accordance with it, yield to it, and obey it, 
in every possible sense. Circumstances alter cases. Do not 
gentlemen here remember the case of that same Supreme Court, 
some twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a National 
Bank was constitutional ? I ask, if somebody does not remem- 
ber that a National Bank was declared to be constitutional? 
Such is the truth, whether it be remembered or not. The bank 
charter ran out, and a recharter was granted by Congress. That 
recharter was laid before General Jackson. It was urged upon 
him, when he denied the constitutionality of the bank, that the 
Supreme Court had decided that it was constitutional ; and that 
General Jackson then said that the Supreme Court had no right 
to lay down a rule to govern a coordinate branch of the govern- 
ment, the members of which had sworn to support the Constitu- 
10 



146 THE SPEECHES OF 

tion ; that each member had sworn to support that Constitution 
as he understood it. I will venture here to say, that I have 
heard Judge Douglas say that he approved of General Jackson 
for that act. What has now become of all his tirade about 
" resistance to the Supreme Court? " 

DOUGLAS vs. THE ILLINOIS KKPUBLICAN PARTY. 

My fellow-citizens, getting back a little, for I pass from these 
points, when Judge Douglas makes his threat of annihilation 
upon the " alliance," he is cautious to say that that warfare of 
his is to fall upon the leaders of the Republican party. Almost 
every word he utters and every distinction he makes, has its 
significance. He means for the Republicans who do not count 
themselves as leaders, to be his friends ; he makes no fuss over 
them ; it is the leaders that he is making war upon. He wants 
it understood that the mass of the Republican party are really 
his friends. It is only the leaders that are doing something, 
that are intolerant, and that require extermination at his hands. 
As this is clearly and unquestionably the light in which he pre- 
sents that matter, I want to ask your attention, addressing my- 
self to the Republicans here, that I may ask you some questions, 
as to where you, as the Republican party, would be placed if 
you sustained Judge Douglas in his present position by a re- 
election ? I do not claim, gentlemen, to be unselfish ; I do not 
pretend that I would not like to go to the United States Senate ; 
I make no such hypocritical pretence, but I do say to you that in 
this mighty issue, it is nothing to you, — nothing to the mass of 
the people of the nation, whether or not Judge Douglas or my- 
self shall ever bo heard of after this night ; it may be a trifle to 
either of us, but in connection with this mighty question, upon 
which hang the destinies of the nation, perhaps, it is absolutely 
nothing ; but where will you be placed if you reindorse Judge 
Douglas? Don't you know how apt he is, — how exceedingly 
anxious he is at all times to seize upon anything anVl ovcrytbiug 
to persuade you that something he has done you did yourselves? 
Why, ho tried to persuade you last night that our lUiuois legis- 



ABRAUAM LINCOLN. 147 

iature instructed him to introduce the Nebraska Bill. There 
was nobody in that legislature ever thought of such a thine;;; 
and when he first introduced the bill, he never thought of it ; 
but still he fights furiously for the proposition, and that he did it 
because there was a standing, instruction to our Senators to be 
always introducing Nebraska bills. He tells you he is for the 
Cincinnati platform, he tells you he is for the Dred Scott deci- 
fiion. He tells you, not in his speech last night, but substan- 
tially in a former speech, that he cares not if slavery is voted up 
or down, — he tells you the struggle on Lecorapton is past, — it 
may come up again or not ; and if it does, he stands where he 
stood when, in spite of him and his opposition, you built up the 
Republican party. If you indorse him, you tell him you do not 
care whether slavery be voted up or down, and he will close, or 
try to close your mouths with his declaration, repeated by the 
day, the week, the month, and the year. Is that what you 
mean? [Cries of "no," one voice "yes."] Yes, I have no 
doubt you who have always been for him, if you mean that. 
No doubt of that, soberly I have said, and I repeat it. I think, 
in the position in which Judge Douglas stood in opposing the 
Lecompton Constitution, he was right ; he does not know that 
it will return, but if it does, we may know where to find him ; 
and if it does not, we may know where to look for him, and that is 
on the Cincinnati platform. Now I could ask the Republican par- 
ty, after all the hard names that Judge Douglas has called them by, 
— all his repeated charges of their inclination to marry with and 
hug negroes, — all his declarations of Black Republicanism, — 
by the way, we are improving, the black has got rubbed, off, — 
but with all that, if he be indorsed by Republican votes, where 
do you stand ? Plainly, you stand ready saddled, bridled, and 
harnessed, and waiting to be driven over to the slavery ex- 
tension camp of the nation, — just ready to be driven over, tied 
together in a lot, — to be driven over, every man with a rope 
around his neck, that halter being held by Judge Douglas. 
That is the question. If Republican men have been in earnest 
in what they have done, I think they had better not do it ; but 



148 THE SrEECHES OP 

I think that the Kcpublican party is made up of those who, as 
far as they can peaceably, will oppose the extension of slavery, 
and who will hope for its ultimate extinction. If they believe ifc 
is wrong in grasping up the new lands of the continent, and 
keeping thera from the. settlement of free white laborers, who 
want the land to bring up their families upon ; if they are in 
earnest, although they may make a mistake, they will grow rest- 
less, and the time will come when they will come back again 
and reorganize, if not by the same name, at least upon the same 
principles as their party now has. It is better, then, to save the 
work while it is begun. You have done the labor ; maintain it, 
keep it. If men choose to serve you, go with them ; but as you 
have made up your organization upon principle, stand by it ; for, 
as surely as God reigns over you, and has inspired your mind, and 
given you a sense of propriety, and continues to give you hope, 
so surely will you still cling to these ideas, and you will at last 
come back again after your wanderings, merely to do your work 
over asain. 



A GOVERNMENT FOR WHITE MEN. 

We were often — more than once at least — in the course of 
Judge Douglas's speech last night, reminded that this Govern- 
ment was made for white men, — that he believed it was made 
for white men. Well, that is putting it into a shape in which 
no one wants to deny it ; but the Judge then goes into his pas- 
sion for drawing inferences that are not warranted. I protest, 
now and forever, against that counterfeit logic which presumes 
that because I did not want a negro woman for a slave, I do 
necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I 
need not have her for either, but, as God made us separate, we 
can leave one another alone, and do one another much good 
thereby. There are white men enough to marry all the wbite 
women, and enough black men to many all the black women, 
and in God's name let them be so married. The Judge regales 
us with the terrible enorniities that take place by the mixture of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 149 

races ; that the inferior race bears the superior clown. Why, 
Judge, if we do not let them get together in the Territories, they 
won't mix there. 

A voice — " Three cheers for Lincoln^" (The cheers were 
given with a hearty good-will.) 

Mr. Lincoln — I should say at least that that is a self-evident 
truth. 

THE ELECTRIC CORD OF FREEDOM. 

Now, it happens that we meet together once every year, some- 
times about the 4th of July, for some reason or other. These 
4th of July gatherings, I suppose, have their uses. If you will 
indulge me, I will state what I suppose to be some of them. 

We are now a mighty nation ; we are thirty, or about thirty 
millions of people, and we own and inhabit about one-fifteenth 
part of the dry land of the whole earth. We run our memory 
back over the pages of history for about eighty-two years, and 
we discover that we were then a very small people in point of 
numbers, vastly inferior to what we are now, with a vastly less 
extent of country, with vastly less of everything we deem desi- 
rable among men, — we look upon the change as exceedingly 
advantageous to us and to our posterity, and we fix upon some- 
thing that happened away back, as in some way or other being 
connected with this rise of prosperity. We find a race of men 
living in that day whom we claim as our fathers and grand- 
fathers ; they were iron men ; they fought for the principle that 
they were contending for ; and we understood that by what they 
then did it has followed that the degree of prosperity which we 
now enjoy has come to us. We hold this annual celebration to 
remind ourselves of all the good done in this process of time, of 
bow it was done and who did it, and how we are historically 
connected with it ; and we go from these meetings in better 
humor with ourselves, — we feel more attached the one to the 
other, and more firmly bound to the country we inhabit. In 
every way we are better men in the age, and race, and country 
in which we live, for these celebrations. But after we have 



150 THE SPEECHES OP 

done all this we bave not yet reached the whole. There is 
something else connected with it. We have besides these, men 
— descended by blood from our ancestors — among us, perhaps 
half our people, who are not descendants at all of these men ; 
they are men who have come from Europe, — German, Irish, 
French, and Scandinavian, — men that have come from Europe 
themselves, or whose ancestors have come hither and settled 
here, finding themselves our equals in all things. If they lock 
back through this history to trace their connection with those 
days by blood, they find they have none ; they cannot carry 
themselves back into that glorious epoch, and make themselves 
feel that they are part of us ; but when they look through that 
old Declaration of Independence, they find that those old men 
say that "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal," and then they feel that that moral sentiment 
taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it 
is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a 
right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and 
flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration ; and so 
they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links 
the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will 
link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom esists 
in the minds of men throughout the world. 

TUE ARGUMENTS OF TYRANNY. 

Now, sirs, for the purpose of squaring things with this idea 
of " don't care if slavery is voted up or voted down," for sus- 
taining the Dred Scott decision, for holding that the Declaration 
of Independence did not mean anything at all, we have Judge 
Douglas giving his exposition of what the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence means, and we have him saying that the people of 
America are equal to the people of England. According to 
his construction, you Germans are not connected with it. Now, 
I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if 
ratified, if confirmed and indorsed, if taught to our children, and 
repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 151 

liberty in tlie country, and to transform this Government into a 
government of some otlier form. Tiiosc arguments that are 
made, tbat the inferior race are to be treated with as much 
allowance as they are capable of enjoying ; that as much is to 
be done for them as their condition will allow, — what are these 
arguments? They are the arguments that kings have made for 
enslaving the people in all ages of the world. You will find 
that all the arguments in favor of king-craft wei-e of this class ; 
they always bestrode the necks of the people, not that they 
wanted to do it, but because the people were better off for being 
ridden. That is their argument, and this argument of the 
Judge is the same old serpent that says you work and I eat, 
you toil and I will enjoy the fruits of it. Turn in whatever 
way you will, — whether it come from the mouth of a king, an 
excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the 
mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of 
another race, — it is all the same old serpent; and I hold if that 
course of argumentation that is made for the purpose of con- 
vincing the public mind that we should not care about this, 
should be granted, it does not stop with the negro. I should 
like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, 
which declares that all men are equal upon principle, and mak- 
ing exceptions to it, where will it stop ? If one man says it 
does not mean a negro, why not another say it does not mean 
some other man ? If that declaration is not the truth, let us 
get the statute book, in which we find it, and tear it out ! 
Who is so bold as to do it ! If it is not true, let us tear it out ! 
[Cries of " no, no."] Let us stick to it then; let us stand 
firmly by it then. 

THK NECESSITY. 

It may be argued that there are certain conditions that make 
necessities, and impose them upon us ; and to the extent that a 
necessity is imposed upon a man, he must submit to it. I think 
that was the condition in which we found ourselves when we 
established this Government. We had slavery among us ; we 



152 THE SPEECHES OP 

could not get our Constitution unless we permitterl them to 
remain in slavery ; wo could not secure the good we did secure 
if we grasped for more ; and having by necessity submitted to 
that much, it does not destroy the principle that is the charter 
of our liberties. Let that charter stand as our standard. 

"do not let us retrogress." 

My friend has said to me that I am a poor hand to quote 
Scripture. I will try it again, however. It is said in one of 
the admonitions of our Lord, " As your Father in heaven is 
perfect, be ye also perfect." The Saviour, I suppose, did not 
expect that any human creature could be perfect as the Father 
in heaven ; but he said, " As your Father in heaven is per- 
fect, be ye also perfect." He set that up as a standard, and he 
who did most toward reaching that standard, attained the high- 
est degree of moral perfection. So I say in relation to the 
principle that all men are created equal, let it be as nearly 
reached as we can. If we cannot give freedom to every crea- 
ture, let us do nothing that will impose slavery upon any other 
creature. Let us then turn this Government back into the 
channel in which the framers of the Constitution originally 
placed it. Let us stand firmly by each other. If we do not do 
so, we are turning in the contrary direction, that our friend 
Judge Douglas proposes — not intentionally — as working in 
the traces tend to make this one universal slave nation. He is 
one that runs in that direction, and as such I resist him. 

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired 
to do ; and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling 
about this man and the other man, — this race and that race, and 
the other race being inferior ; and therefore they must be placed 
in an inferior position, — discarding our standard that we have 
left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one peo- 
ple throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up 
declaring that all men are created equal. 

My friends, I could not, without launching off upon some 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 153 

new topic, xvliich would detain you too long, continue to-night. 
I thank you for this most extensive audience that you have fur- 
nished me to-night. I leave you, hoping that the lamp of 
liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a 
doubt that all men are created free and equal. 



154 THE SPEECHES OP 



PKESENT POSITION OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION 

DELIVERED JULY 17, 1851, IN SPRINGFIELD. 

Judge Douglas replied to the preceding speech in two elabo- 
rate arguments, at Bloomington, on the IGth of July, and at 
Springfield on the following diiy. In the evening, Mr. Lincoln 
replied. 

THE WORK TO BE DONE THE DEMOCRATIC APPORTIONMENT. 

Fellow Citizens : Another election, which is deemed an 
important one, is approaching, and, as I suppose, the Republi- 
can party will, without much difficulty, elect their State ticket. 
But in regard, to the legislature, we, the Republicans, labor 
under some disadvantages. In the first place, we have a legis- 
lature to elect upon an apportionment of the representation 
made several years ago, when the proportion of the population 
was far greater in the South (as compared with the North) than 
it now is ; and inasmuch as our opponents hold almost entiie 
sway in the South, and we a correspondingly large majority in 
the North, the fact that we are now to be represented as we 
were years ago, when the population was different, is, to us, a 
very great disadvantage. We had in the year 1855, according 
to law, a census or enumeration of the inhabitant?, taken for the 
purpose of a new apportionment of representation. Wc know 
what a fair apportionment of representation upon that census 
would give us. Wc know that it could not, if fairly made, fail 
to give the Republican party from six to ten more members of ^ 
the legislature than they can probably get as the law now stands. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 155 

It so happened at the hist session of the legislature, that our 
opponents, holding the control of both branches of the legisla- 
ture, steadily refused to give us such an apportionment as 'pe 
were rightly entitled to have upon the census already taken. 
The legislature steadily refused to give us such an apportion- 
ment as we were rightfully entitled to have upon the census 
taken of the population of the State. The legislature would 
pass no bill upon that subject, except such as' was at least as 
unfair to us as the old one, and in which, in some instances, two 
men in the Democratic regions were allowed to go as far toward 
sending a member to the legislature as three were in the Pte- 
publican regions. Comparison was made at the time as to rep- 
resentative and senatorial districts, which completely demon- 
strated that such was the fact. Such a bill was passed and 
tendered to the Republican Governor for his signature ; but 
principally for the reasons I have stated, he withheld his ap- 
proval, and the bill fell without becoming a law. 

Another disadvantage under which wo labor is, that there are 
one or two Democratic Senators who will be members of the 
next legislature, and will vote for the election of Senator, who 
are holding over in districts in which we could, on all reasonable 
calculation, elect men of our own, if we only had the chance of 
an election. When we consider that there are but twenty-five 
Senators in the Senate, taking two from the side where they 
rightfully belong and adding them to the other, is to us a disad- 
vantage not to be lightly regarded. Still, so it is ; we have this 
to contend with. Perhaps there is no ground of complaint on 
our part. In attending to the many things involved in the last 
general election for President, Governor, Auditor, Treasurer, 
Superintendent of Public Instruction, Members of Congress, of 
the legislature, county officers, and so on, we allowed these 
things to happen by want of sufficient attention, and we have no 
cause to complain of our adversaries, so far as this matter is con- 
cerned. But we have some cause to complain of the refusal to 
give us a fair apportionment. 



156 THE SPEECHES OF 



THE CANDIDATES. 

-There is still anotlier disadvantage under which we labor, and 
to which I will ask your attention. It arises out of the relative 
positions of the two persons who stand before the State as can- 
didates for the Senate. Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. 
All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his 
party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, 
at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. 
They have seen in his round, jolly fruitful lace, post-offices, 
land-offices, marshalships and cabinet appointments, chargeships 
and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful 
exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. 
And as they have been gazing upon this attractive picture so 
long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken place 
in the party, bring themselves to give up the charming hope; 
but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, sustain him, and 
give him marches, triumphal entries, and receptions beyond what 
even in the days of his highest prosperity they could have brought 
about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever expected 
me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has 
ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out. These are 
disadvantages, all taken together, that the Republicans labor 
under. We have to fight this battle upon principle, and upon 
principle alone. I am, in a certain sense, made the standard- 
bearer in behalf of the Republicans. I was made so merely 
because there had to be some one so placed, — I being in no wise 
preferable to any other one of the twenty-five perhaps a hun- 
dred we have in the Republican ranks. Then I say I wish it to 
be distinctly understood and borne in mind, that we have to fight 
this battle without many perhaps without any of the external 
aids which are brought to bear against us. So I hope those 
with whom I am surrounded have principle enough to nerve 
themselves for the task, and leave nothing undone that can be 
faiily done, to bring about the right result. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ' 157 

" THE LITTLE GIANT," AND IIIS PRINCIPLES. 

After Senator Douglas left Washington, as bis movements 
were made known by the public prints, ho tarried a consider- 
able time in the city of New York ; and it was heralded that, 
like another Napoleon, he was lying by, and framing the plan 
of his campaign. It was telegraphed to Washington City, and 
published in the Union, that he was framing his plan for {ha 
purpose of going to Illinois, to pounce upon, and annihilate the 
treasonable and disunion speech which Lincoln had made here 
on the IGth of June. Now, I do suppose that the Judge really 
spent some time in New York, maturing the plan of the cam- 
paign, as his friends heralded for him. I have been able, by 
noting his movements since his arrival in Illinois, to discover 
evidences confirmatory of that allegation. I think I have been 
able to see what are the material points of that plan. I will, 
for a little while, ask your attention to some of them. What 1 
shall point out, though not showing the whole plan, are, neverthe- 
less, the main points, as I suppose. 

They are not very numerous. The first is popular sover- 
eignty. The second and third are attacks upon my speech made 
on the 16th of June. Out of these three points, — drawing 
within the range of popular sovereignty the question of the Le- 
compton Constitution, — he makes his principal assault. Upon 
these his successive speeches are substantially one and the same. 
On this matter of popular sovereignty I wish to be a little care- 
ful. Auxiliary to these main points, to be sure, are their thun- 
derings of cannon, their marching and music, their fizzle-gigs, 
and fire-works ; but I -will not waste time with them. They are 
but the little trappings of the campaign. 

Coming to the substance, — the first point, — " popular sov- 
ereignty." It is to be labelled upon the cars in which he trav- 
els ; put upon the hacks he rides in ; to be flaunted upon the 
arches he passes under, and the banners which wave over him. 
It is to be dished up in as many varieties as a French cook can 
produce soups from potatoes. Now, as this is so great a staple 



158 TUE SPEECHES OF 

of the plan of the campaign, it is worth while to examine it care- 
fully ; and if we examine only a very little, and do not allow 
ourselves to be mislod, we shall be able to see that the whole 
thing is the most arrant Quixotism that was ever enacted before 
a community. What is the matter of popular sovereignty ? 
The first thing, in order to understand it, is to get a good defini- 
tion of what it is, and after that to see how it is applied. 

THE REAL ISSUE. 

I suppose almost every one knows that, in this controversy, 
whatever has been said has had reference to the question of ne- 
gro slavery. We have not been in a controversy about the right 
of the people to govern themselves in the ordinary matters of 
domestic concern in the States and Territories. Mr. Buchanan, 
in one of his late messages, (I think when he sent up the Le- 
compton Constitution.) urged that the main points to which the 
public attention hud been directed, was not in regard to the 
great variety of small domestic matters, but was directed to the 
question of negro slavery ; and he asserts, that if the people 
had had a fair chance to vote on that question, there was no 
reasonable ground of objection in regard to minor questions. 
Now, while I think that the people had not had given, or ofijred 
them, a fair chance upon that slavery question ; still, if there 
had been a fair submission to a vote upon that main question, 
the President's proposition would have been true to the utter- 
most. Hence, when hereafter I speak of popular sovereignty, I 
wish to be understood as applying what I say to the question of 
slavery only, not to other minor domestic matters of a Territory 
or a State. 

Douglas's ixconsistencies. 

Does Judge Douglas, when he says that several of the past 
years of his life have been devoted to the question of " popular 
sovereignty," and that all the remainder of his life shall be de- 
voted to it, does he mean to say that he has been devoting his 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 159 

life to securing to the people of the Territories the right to es- 
cludo slavery from the Territories ? If he means so to say, ho 
means to deceive ; because he and every one knows that the 
decision of the Supreme Court, which he approves and mal;cs 
especial ground of attack upon me for disapproving, forbids the 
people of a Territory to exclude slavery. This covers the whole 
ground, from the scttlciiient of a Territory till it reaches the de- 
gree of maturity entitling it to form a State constitution. So 
far as all that ground is concerned,. the Judge is not sustaining 
popular sovereignty, but absolutely opjmsing it. He sustains 
the decision which declares that the popular will of the Terri- 
tories has no constitutional power to exclude slavery during their 
territorial existence. This being so, the period of time from the 
first settlement of a Territory till it reaches the point of forming 
a State constitution, is not the thing that the Judge has fought 
for or is fighting for; but on the contrary, he has fought for, 
and is fighting for, the thing that annihilates and crushes out that 
same popular sovereignty. 

Well, so much being disposed of, what is left ? ^Vliy, he is 
contending for the right of the people, when they come to make 
a State constitution, to make it for themselves, and precisely as 
best suits themselves. I say again, that is Quixotic. I defy 
contradiction when I declare that the Judge can find no one to 
oppose him on that proposition. I repeat, there is nobody op- 
posing that proposition on principle. Let me not be misunder- 
stood. I know that, with reference to the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion, I may be misunderstood ; but when you understand me 
correctly, my proposition will be true and accurate. Nobody is 
opposing, or has ojjposed, the right of the people, when they form 
a constitution, to form it for themselves. Mr. Buchanan and 
his friends have not done it ; they, too, as well as the Republi- 
cans and the Anti-Leeompton Democrats, have not done it; but, 
on the contrary, they together have insisted on the right of the 
people to form a constitution for themselves. The difference 
between the Buchanan men on the one hand, and the !)()ii'>;las 
men and the Republicans on the other, has not Leon on a (|ues- 
tiou of principle, bat on a i^uet-tion of fact. 



160 THE SPEECHES OF 



WnO FORMED THE LECOMPTOX CONSTITUTION I 

Tlie dispute was upon the question of fact, whether the Le- 
compLon Constitution hud been fairly formed by the people or 
not. Mr. Buchanan and his friends have not contended for the 
contrary principle any more than the Douglas men or the Re- 
publicans. They have insisted that whatever of small irregu- 
larities existed in getting up the Lecompton Constitution, were 
such as happen in the settlement of all new Territories. The 
question was, was it a fair emanation of the people ? It was a 
question of fact, and not of principle. As to the principle, all 
were agreed. Judge Douglas voted with the Republicans upon 
that matter of fiict. 

He and they, by their voices and votes, denied that it was a 
fair emanation of the people. The Administration affirmed that 
it was. With respect to the evidence bearing upon that ques- 
tion of fact, I readily agree that Judge Douglas and the Repub- 
licans bad the right on their side, and that the Administration 
was wrong. But I state again that, as a matter of principle, 
there is no dispute upon the right of a people in a Territory, 
merging into a State, to form a Constitution for themselves, 
without outside interference from any quarter. This being so, 
what is Judge Douglas going to spend his life for ? Is he gi'ing 
to spend his life in maintaining a principle that nobody on earth 
opposes? Does he expect to stand up in majestic dignity, and 
go through his apotlteosis and become a god, in the maintaining 
of a principle which neither man nor mouse in all God's creation 
is opposing ? Now, something in regard to the Lecompton Con- 
stitution more especially ; for I pass from this other question of 
popular sovereignty as the most arrant humbug that has ever 
been attempted on an intelligent community. 

WHO KILLED THE LECOMPTON SWINDLE ? 

As to the Lecompton Constitution, I have already said that 
on the question of fact as to whether it was a fair emanatirni of 
the people or not, Judge Douglas with the Republicans and 



ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 161 

some Americans, had greatly the argument against the Adminis- 
tration ; and while I repeat this, I wish to know what there is 
in the opposition of Judge Douglas to the Lecompton Constitu- 
tion that entitles him to be considered the only opponent to it, 
— as being par excellence the very quintessence of that opposi- 
tion. I agree to the rightfulness of his opposition. He in the Sen- 
ate and his class of men there formed the number three and no 
more. In the Hou.se of Representatives his class of men, the Anti- 
Lecorapton Democrats, formed a number of about twenty. It 
took one hundred and twenty to defeat the measure, against one 
hundred and twelve. Of the votes of that one hundred and 
twenty, Judge Douglas's friends furnished twenty, to add to 
which there were six Americans and ninety-four Republicans. 
I do not say that I am precisely accurate in their numbers, but 
I am sufficiently so for any use I am making of it. 

Why is it that twenty shall be entitled to all the credit of 
doing that work, and the hundred none of it ? Why, if, as 
Judge Douglas says, the honor is to be divided, and due credit 
is to be given to other parties, why is just so much given as is 
consonant with the wishes, the interests, and advancement of the 
twenty? My understanding is, when a common job is done, or 
a common enterprise prosecuted, if I put in five dollars to your 
one, I have a right to take out five dollars to your one. But 
he does not so. understand it. He declares the dividend of 
credit for defeating Lecompton upon a basis which seems unpre- 
cedented and incomprehensible. 

WORKS MEET FOR REPENTANCE. 

jet us see. Lecompton in the raw was defeated. It after- 
ward took a sort of cooked-up shape, and was passed in the 
English bill. It is said by the Judge that the defeat was a 
good and proper thing. If it was a good thing, why is he enti- 
tled to more credit than others, for the performance of that good 
act, unless there was something in the antecedents of the Re- 
publicans that might induce every one to expect them to join in 
that good work, and at the same time, something leading them 
11 



162 THE SPEECHES OP 

to doubt that be would ? Does be place bis superior claim to 
credit, on the ground that he performed a good act which Avas 
never expected of him ? He says I have a proneness for quot- 
ing Scripture. If I should do so now, it occurs that perhaps he 
places himself somewhat upon the ground of the parable of the 
lost sheep which went astray upon the mountains, and when the 
owner of the hundred sheep found the one that was lost, and 
threw it upon bis shoulders, and came home rejoicing, it was 
said that there was more rejoicing over the one sheep that was 
lost and bad been found, than over the ninety and nine in the 
fold. The application is made by the Saviour in this parable, 
thus: "Verily, I say unto you, there is more rejoicing in 
heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine 
just persons that need no repentance." 

And now, if the Judge claims the benefit of this parable, let 
him repent. Let him not come up here and say, " I am the 
only just person ; and you are the ninety-nine sinners ! " Re- 
pentance before forgiveness is a provision of the Christian sys- 
tem, and on that condition alone will the Republicans grant liis 
forgiveness. 

WHERE DOUGLAS LEARNED TO OPPOSE LECOMPTOX. 

How will he prove that we have ever occupied a different po- 
sition in regard to the Lecompton Constitution or any princi|ile 
in it ? He says he did not make his opposition on the ground 
as to whether it was a free or slave constitution, and be would 
have you understand that the llepublicans made their opposition 
because it ultimately became a slave constitution. To make 
proof in favor of himself on this point, be reminds us that he 
opposed Lecompton before the vote was taken declaring whether 
the State was to be free or slave. But he forgets to say that our 
Republican Senator, Trumbull, made a speech against Lecomp- 
ton even before he did. 

Why did he oppose it ? Partly, as be declares, because the 
members of the Ccmventiou who framed it were not fairly 
elected by the people ; that the people were not allowed to vote 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 163 

unless they bad been registered ; and that the people of whole 
cr.utities, in some instances, were not registered. For these 
reasons he declares the constitution was not an emanation, in 
any true sense, from the people. He also has an additional 
objection as to the mode of submitting the constitution back to 
the people. But bearing on the question of whether the d(de- 
gatcs were fairly elected, a speech of his, made something more 
than twelve months ago, from this stand, becomes important. 
It was made a little while before the election of the delegates 
who made Lecompton. In that speech he declared there was 
every reason to hope and believe the election would be fair ; 
and if any one failed to vote, it would be his own culpable 
fault. 

I, a few days after, made a sort of answer to that speech. In 
that answer, I made, substantially, the very argument with which 
he combated his Lecompton adversaries in the Senate last winter. 
I pointed to the facts that the people could not vote without 
being registered, and that the time for registering had gone by. 
I commented on it as wonderful that Judge Douglas could be 
ignorant of these facts, which every one else in the nation so 
well knew. 

I now pass from popular sovereignty and Lecompton. I may 
have occasion to refer to one or both 

HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 

When he was preparing his plan of campaign, Napoleon-like, 
in New York, as appears by two speeches I have heard him 
deliver since his arrival in Illinois, he gave special attention to a 
speech of mine, delivered here on the 16th of June last. He 
says that he carefully read that speech. He told us that at 
Chicago, a week ago last night, and he repeated it at Blooming- 
ton last night. Doubtless, he repeated it again to-day, though 
I did not hear him. In the first two places — Chicago and 
Bloomington — I heard him; to-day I did not. Ho said he 
had carefully examined that speech ; when, he did not say ; but 
there is no reasonable doubt it was when he was in New York, 



164 THE SPEECHES OP 

proparini:^ liis plan of campaign. I am glad be did read it care- 
fully, lie says it was evidently prepared with great care. I 
frecdy admit it was prepared with care. I claim not to be more 
free from errors than others, — perhaps scarcely so much; but 
I was very careful not to put anything in that speech as a mat- 
ter of fact, or make any inferences which did not appear to me 
to be true, and fully warrantable. If I had made any mistake, 
I was willing to be corrected ; if I had drawn any inference in 
regard to Judge Douglas, or any one else, which was not war- 
ranted, I was fully prepared to modify it as soon as discovered. 
I planted myself upon the truth, and the truth only, so far as I 
knew it, or could be brought to know it. 

Having made that speech with the most kindly feelings toward 
Judge Douglas, as manifested therein, I was gratified when I 
found that he had carefully examined it, and had detected no 
error of fact, no'r any inference against him, nor any misrepre- 
sentations, of which he thought fit to complain. In neither of 
the two speeches I have mentioned, did he make any such com- 
plaint. I will thank any one who will inform me that he, in 
bis speech to-day, pointed out anything I had stated, respecting 
him, as being erroneous. I presume there is no such thing. I 
have reason to be gratified that the care and caution used in 
that speech, left it so that he, most of all others interested in 
discovering error, has not been able to point out one thing 
against him which he could say was wrong. He seizes upon 
the doctrines he supposes to be included in that speech, and 
declares that upon them will turn the issues of this campaign. 
He then quotes, or attempts to quote, from my speech. I will 
not say that he wilfully misquotes, but he does fail to quote 
accurately. His attempt at quoting is from a passage which I 
believe I can quote accurately from memory. I shall make the 
quotation now, with some comments upon it, as I have already 
said, in order that the Judge shall be left entirely without ex- 
cuse for misrepresenting me. I do so now, as I hope, for the 
last lime. I do this in great caution, in order that if he repeats 
his misrepresentation, it shall be plain to all that he does so 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 165 

■wilfully. If, after all, he still persists, I shall be compelled to 
reconstruct the course I have marked out for myself, and draw 
upon such humble resources as I have, for a new course, better 
suited to the real exigences of the case. I set out, in this cam- 
paign, with the intention of conducting it strictly as a gentleman, 
in substance at least, if not in the outside polish. The latter I 
shall never be, but that which constitutes the inside of a gentle- 
man I hope I understand, and am not less inclined to practice 
than others. It was my purpose and expectation that this can- 
vass would be conducted upon principle, and with fairness on 
both sides, and it shall not be my fault if this purpose and ex- 
pectation shall be given up. 

"a war of sections." 

He charges, in substance, that I invite a war of sections ; that 
I propose all the local institutions of the different States shall 
become consolidated and uniform. What is there in the lan- 
guage of that speech which expresses such purpose, or bears 
such construction ? I have again and again said that I would 
not enter into any of the States to disturb the institution of 
slavery. Judge Douglas said, at Bloomington, that I used 
language most able and ingenious for concealing what I really 
meant; and that, while I had protested against entering into the 
slave States, I nevertheless did mean to go on the banks of the 
Ohio, and throw missiles into Kentucky, to disturb them in 
their domestic institutions. 

I said, in that speech, and I meant no more, that the institu- 
tion of slavery ought to be placed in the very attitude where the 
frame rs of this Government placed it, and left it. I do not un- 
derstand that the framers of our Constitution left the people of 
the free States in the attitude of firing bombs or shells into the 
slave States. I was not using that passage for the purpose for 
which he infers I did use it. I said, "We are now far advanced 
into the fifth year since a policy was created for the avowed 
object, and with the confident promise, of putting an end to 
slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that 



1G6 THE SPEECHES OF 

a,Q;itation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. 
In my opinion, it will not cease till a crisis shall have been 
reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot 
stand.' I believe that this Government cannot endure perma- 
nently half slave and half free. It will become all one thing, or 
all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall 
rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, 
or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike 
lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as 
South." 

Xow you all see, from that quotation, I did not express my 
wish on anything. In that passage, I indicated no wish or 
purpose of my own ; I simply expressed my expectation. Can- 
not the Judge perceive a distinction between a purpose and an 
expectation ? I have often expressed an expectation to die, but 
I have never expressed a wish to die. I said at Chicago, and 
now repeat, that I am quite aware this Government has endured, 
half slave and half free, for eighty-two years. I understand 
that little bit of history. I expressed the opinion I did, because 
I perceived, or thought I perceived, a new set of causes intro- 
duced. I did say at Chicago, in my speech there, that I do 
•wish to see the spread of slavery arrested, and to see it placed 
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction. I said that, because I supposed, 
when the public mind shall rest in that belief, we shall have 
peace on the slavery question. I have believed, and now 
believe, the public mind did rest on that belief up to the intro- 
tion of the Nebraska Bill. 

THE NATIONALIZATION OF SLAVERY. 

Although I have ever been opposed to slavery, so far I rested 
in tlie hope and belief that it was in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction. For that reason, it had been a minor question with 
nic. I might have been mistaken; but I had believed, and 
now believe, that the whole public mind, that is, the. mind of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 167 

the great majority, had rested in that belief up to the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise. But upon that event, I became con- 
vinced that either I had been resting in a delusion, or the insti- 
tution was being placed on a new basis, — a basis for making it 
perpetual, national, and universal. Subsequent events have 
greatly confirmed me in that belief I believe that bill to be 
the beginning of a conspiracy for that purpose. So believing, I 
have since then considered that question a paramount one. So 
believing, I think the public mind will never rest till the 
power of Congress to restrict the spread of it shall again be 
acknowledged and exercised on the one hand, or, on the other, 
all resistance be entirely crushed out. I have expressed that 
opinion, and I entertain it to-night. It is denied that there is 
any tendency to the nationalization of slavery in these States. 

CAROLINIAN AND VIRGINIAN TESTIMONY. 

Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, in one of his speeches, when 
they were presenting him canes, silver plate, gold pitchers, and 
the like, for assaulting Senator Sumner, distinctly affirmed his 
opinion that when this Constitution was formed, it was the be- 
lief of no man that slavery would last to the present day. 

He said, what I think, that the framers of our Constitution 
placed the institution of slavery where the public mind rested in 
the hope that it was in the course of ultimate extinction. But 
he went on to say that the men of the present age, by their 
experience, have become wiser than the framers of the Consti- 
tution ; and the invention of the cotton-gin had made the 
perpetuity of slavery a necessity in this country. 

As another piece of evidence tending to this same point : 
Quite recently in Virginia, a man — the owner of slaves — 
made a will providing that after his death certain of his slaves 
should have their freedom if they should so choose, and go to 
Liberia, rather than remain in slavery. They chose to be 
liberated. But the persons to whom they would descend as 
property, claimed them as slaves. A suit was instituted, which 
finally came to the Supreme Court of Virginia, and was therein 



168 THE SPEECHES OF 

decided against the slaves, upon the ground that a negro cannot 
make a choice, — that they had no legal power to choose, — 
could not perform the condition upon which their freedom 
depended. 

I do not mention this with any purpose of criticising it, but 
to connect it with the arguments as affording additional evidence 
of the change of [^entiment upon this question of slavery in the 
direction of making it perpetual and national. I argue now as 
I did before, that there is such a tendency ; and I am backed, 
not merely by the facts, but by the open confession in the slave 
States. 

THE RULE OF THE FATHEKS AND ITS EFFECTS. 

And now, as to the Judge's inference, that because I wish to 
see slavery placed in the course of ultimate extinction, — placed 
■where our fathers originally placed it, — I wish to annihilate the 
State legislatures, — to force cotton to grow upon the tops of 
the Green Mountains, — to freeze ice in Florida, — to cut lum- 
ber on the broad Illinois prairies, — that I am in favor of all 
these ridiculous and impossible things. 

It seems to me it is a complete answer to all this to ask, if, 
when Congress did have the fashion of restricting slavery from 
free territory ; when courts did have the fashion of deciding that 
taking a slave into a free country made him free, — I say it is a 
sufficient answer to ask, if any of this ridiculous nonsense about 
consolidation and uniformity, did actually follow ? Who heard 
of any such thing, because of the ordinance of '87 ? because of 
the Missouri Restriction ? because of the numerous court deci- 
sions of that character ? 

JUDICIAL AUTHORITY. 

Now, as to the Dred Scott decision ; for upon that he makes 
his last point at me. He boldly takes ground in favor of that 
dec sion. 

This is one half of the onslaught, and one third of the entire 
plan of the campaign. I am opposed to that decision in a cer- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 169 

tain sense, but not in the sense which he puts on it. I say that 
in so far as it deciJcd in favor of Dred Scott's inastcr, and ygainst 
Dred Scott and his family, I do not propose to distuib or resist 
the decision. 

I never have proposed to do any such thing. I think, that 
in respect for judicial authority, my humble history would not 
suffer in comparison with that of Judge Douglas. He would 
have the citizen conform his vote to that decision ; the member 
of Congress, his ; the President his use of the veto power. He 
would make it a rule of political action for the people and all the 
departments of the Government. I would not. By resisting it 
as a political rule, I disturb no right of property, create no dis- 
order, excite no mobs. 

When he spoke at Chicago, on Friday evening of last week, 
he made this same point upon me. On Saturday evening I re- 
plied, and reminded him of a Supreme Court decision, which be 
opposed for at least several years. Last night, at Bloomington, 
he took some notice of that reply, but entirely forgot to remem- 
ber that part of it. 

He renews his onslaught upon me, forgetting to remember 
that I have turned the tables against himself on that very point. 
I renew the effort to draw his attention to it. I wish to stand 
erect before the country, as well as Judge Douglas, on this 
question of judicial authority ; and therefore I add something 
to the authority, in favor of my own position. I wish to show 
that I am sustained by authority, in addition to that heretofore 
presented. I do not expect to convince the Judge. It is part 
of the plan of his campaign, and he will cling to it with a des- 
perate gripe. Even turn it upon him, — the sharp point against 
him, and gaff him through, — he will still cling to it till he can 
invent some new dodge to take the place of it. 

DANGERS OF JUDICIAL ENCROACHMENTS. 

In public speaking it is tedious reading from. documents ; but 
I must beg to indulge the practice to a limited extent. I shall 
read from a letter written by Mr. Jefferson in 1820, and now to 



170 THE SPEECHES OF 

Lc found in the peventh volume of his correspondence, at page 
177. It seems he had been presented, by a gentleman of the 
name of Jarvis, with a book, or essay, or periodical, called the 
" rtopublican/' and he was writing in acknowledgment of the 
present, and noting some of its contents. After expressing the 
hope that the work will produce a favorable effect upon the 
minds of the young, he proceeds to say : — 

" That it will have this tendency may be expected, and for 
that reason I feel an urgency to note what I deem an error in 
it, the more requiring notice as your opinion is strengthened by 
that of many others. You seem, in pages 84 and 148, to con- 
sider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional 
questions, — a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which 
would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our 
judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They 
have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and 
the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is, ' boni judicis est 
ampUare jurisdlctionem ; ' and their power is the more dan- 
gerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the 
other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitu- 
tion has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that, to what- 
ever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its 
members would become despots. It has more wisely made all 
the departments coequal and co-sovereign with themselves." 

Thus we see the power claimed for the Supremo Court by 
Judge Douglas, Mr. Jefferson holds, would reduce us to the 
despotism of an oligarchy. 

Now, I have said no more than this, — in fact, never quite so 
much as this • at least I am sustained by Mr. Jefferson. 

WUY DOUGLAS SUPPOllTS THE DECISION. 

Let us go a little further. You remember we once had a 
National i>ank. Some one owed the bank a debt ; he was sued 
and sought to avoid payment, on the ground that the bank was 
unconstitutional. The case went to the Supreme Court, and 
therein it was decided that the bank was constitutional. The 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 171 

wliole Democratic party revolted against that decision. Gen- 
eral Jackson himself asserted, that he, as President, would not 
be bound to hold a National Bank to be constitutional, even 
though the Court had decided it to be so. He fell in precisely 
with the view of Mr. Jefferson, and acted upon it under his 
oILcial oath, in vetoing a charter for a National Bank. The 
declaration that Congress does not possess this constitutional 
power to charter a bank, has gone into the Democratic platform, 
at their National Conventions, and was brought forward and re- 
affirmed in their last Convention at Cincinnati. They have 
contended for that declaration, in the very teeth of the Supreme 
Court, for more than a quarter of a century. In fact, they have 
reduced the decision to an absolute nullity. That decision, I 
repeat, is repudiated in the Cincinnati platform ; and still, as if 
to show that effrontery can go no farther. Judge Douglas vaunts 
in the very speeches in which he denounces me for opposing the 
Dred Scott decision, that he stands on the Cincinnati platform. 

Now, I wish to know what the Judge can charge upon me, 
with respect to decisions of the Supreme Court, which does not 
lie, in all its length, breadth, and proportions, at his own door. 
The plain truth is simply this : Judge Douglas is for Supreme 
Court decisions when he likes, and against them when he does 
not like them. He is for the Dred Scott decision because it 
tends to nationahze slavery, — because it is part of the original 
combination for that oliject. It so happens, singularly enough, 
that I never stood opposed to a decision of the Supreme Court 
till this. On the contrary, I have no recollection that ho was 
ever particularly in favor of one till this. He never was in favor 
of any, nor opposed to any, till the present one, which helps to 
nationalize slavery. 

Free men of Sangamon, — freemen of Illinois, — free men 
everywhere, — judge ye between him and me, upon this issue. 

THE PARALLELS OF HISTORY. 

He says this Dred Scott case is a very small matter at most, 
— that it has no practical effect ; that at best, or rather, I sup- 



172 THE SPEECHES OP 

pose, at worst, it is but an abstraction. I submit that tbe prop- 
osition that the thing which deterniines whether a man is free 
or a slave, is rather concrete than abstract. I think you would 
conclude that it was, if your liberty depended upon it, and so 
would Judge Douglas if his liberty depended upon it. But 
suppose it was on the question of spreading slavery over the new 
Territories that he considers it as being merely an abstract mat- 
ter, one of no practical importance. How has the planting 
of slavery in new countries always been effected ? It has now 
been decided that slavery cannot be kept out of our new Terri- 
tories by any legal means. In what do our new Territories 
now differ in this respect from the old Colonies when slavery was 
fir.st planted within them V It was planted, as Mr. Clay once 
declared, and as history proves true, by individual men, in spite 
of the wishes of the people ; the mother Government refusing to 
prohibit it, and withholding from the people of the Colonies the 
authority to prohibit it for themselves. Mr. Clay says this was 
one of the great and just causes of complaint against Great 
]}ritain by the Colonies, and the best apology we can now make 
for having the institution amongst us. In that precise condition 
our Nebraska politicians have at last succeeded in placing our 
own new Territories ; the Government will not prohibit slavery 
within them, nor allow the people to prohibit it. 

I defy any man to find any difference between the policy 
which originally planted slavery in these Colonies and that policy 
which now prevails in our new Territories. If it docs not go 
into them, it is only because no individual wishes it to go. The 
Judge indulged himself, doubtless to-day, with the -question as 
to what I am going to do with or about the Dred Scott decision. 
AVell, Judge, will you please tell me what you did about the 
bank decision ? Will you not graciously allow us to do with 
the Dred Scott decision precisely as you did with the bank de- 
cision? You succeeded in breaking down the moral effect of 
that decision; did you find it necessary to amend the Constitu- 
tion ? or to set up a court of negroes in order to do it ? 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 173 

Clay — Webster — Douglas. 

There is one other point. Judge Douglas has a very affec- 
tionate leaning toward the Americans and Old Whigs. Last 
evening, in a sort of weeping tone, he described to us a death- 
bed scone. He had been called to the side of Mr. Clay, in hia 
last moments, in order that the genius of " popular sovereignty'' 
might duly descend from the dying man and settle upon him, 
the living and most worthy successor. He could do no less than 
promise that he would devote the remainder of his life to " pop- 
ular sovereignty;" and then the great statesman departs in 
peace. By this part of the " plan of the campaign," the Judge 
has evidently promised himself that tears shall be drawn down 
the checks of all Old Whigs, as large as half-grown apples. 

Mr. Webster, too, was mentioned ; but it did not quite come 
to a death-bed scene, as to him. It would be amusing, if it were 
not disgusting, to see how quick these compromise-breakers ad- 
minister on the political effects of their dead adversaries, trump- 
ing up claims never before heard of, and dividing the assets 
among themselves. If I should be found dead to-morrow 
morning, nothing but my insignificance could prevent a speech 
being made on my authority, before the end of nest week. It 
so happens that in that "popular sovereignty " with which Mr. 
Clay was identified, the Missouri Compromise was expressly 
reserved ; and it was a little singular if Mr. Clay cast his man- 
tle upon Judge Douglas on purpose to have that compromise 
repealed. 

Again, the Judge did not keep faith with Mr, Clay when he 
first brought in his Nebraska Bill. He left the Missouri Com- 
promise unrepealed ; and in his report accompanying the bill, 
he told the world he did it on purpose. The manes of 3Ir. 
Clay must have been in great agony, till thirty days later, when 
" popular sovereignty " stood forth in all its glory. 

AMENDING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

One more thing. Last night Judge Douglas tormented him- 
self with horrors about my disposition to make negroes perfectly 



174 THE SPEECHES OP 

e([ual with white men in social and political relations. He did 
not stop to sliow that I have said any such thing, or that it 
legitimately follows from anything I have said ; but he rushes 
on with his assertions. I adhere to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. If Judge Douglas and his friends are not willing to 
stand hy it, let them come up and amend it. Let them make it 
read that all men are created equal, except negroes. Let us 
have it decided, whether the Declaration of Independence, in 
this blessed year of 1858, shall be thus amended. In his con- 
struction of the Declaration last year, he sail it only meant that 
Americans in America were equal to Englishmen in England. 
Tlien, when I pointed out to him that by that rule he excludes 
the Germans, the Irish, the Portuguese, and all the other peo- 
ple who have come amongst us since the He volution, he recon- 
structs his construction. In his last speech he tells us it meant 
Eur()[)eans. 

I press him a little further, and ask if it meant to include 
the Hussians in Asia V Or does he mean to exclude that vast 
j)()pulation from the principles of our Declaration of Indepen- 
dence ? I expect ere long he will introduce another amendment 
to his definition. He is not at all particular. He is satisfied 
with anything which does not endanger the nationalizing of 
negro slavery. It may draw white men down ; but it must not 
lift negroes up. Who shall say, '' I am the superior, and you 
are the inferior? " 

TOE EQUAL RIGHT TO LABOR. 

My declarations upon this subject of negro slavery may be 
misrepresented, but cannot be misunderstood. I have said that 
I do not understand the declaration to mean that all men were 
created equal in all respects. They are nut our equal in color ; 
but I suppose that it does mean to declare that ^ men are 
equal in some respect ; they are equal in their right to " life, 
lilierty, and the pursuit of happiness." Certainly the negro is 
nut our equal in color, — perhaps not in many other respects j 
still, in the riglit tu put into his mouth the bread that his own 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 175 

liands have earned, he is the equal of every other man, white or 
black. In pointing out that more has been given you, you can- 
not be justified in taking away the little which has been given 
him. All I ask for the negro is, that if you do not like him, 
let him alone. If God gave him but little, that little let him 
enjoy. 

WHAT THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION MEANT AND DID. 

When our Government was established, we had the institu- 
tion of slavery among us. We were in a certain sense com- 
pelled to tolerate its existence. It was a sort of necessity. We 
had gone through our struggle and secured our own indepen- 
dence. The framers of the Constitution found the institution 
of slavery amongst their other institutions at the time. They 
found that by an effort to eradicate it, they might lose much of 
what they had already gained. They were obliged to bow to the 
necessity. They gave power to Congress to abolish the slave- 
trade at the end of twenty years. They also prohibited it in 
the territories where it did not exist. They did what they 
could and yielded to the necessity for the rest. I also yield to 
all which follows from that necessity. What I would most 
desire would be the separation of the white and black races. 

CONSPIRACY TO MAKE SLAVERY NATIONAL. 

One more point on this Springfield speech, which Judge 
Douglas says he has read so carefully. I expressed my belief 
in the existence of a conspiracy to perpetuate and nationalize 
slavery. I did not profess to know it, nor do I now- I showed 
the part Judge Douglas had played in the string of facts, consti- 
tuting to my mind the proof of that conspiracy. I showed the 
parts played by others. 

I charged that the people had been deceived into carrying 
the last presidential election, by the impression that the people 
of the Territories might exclude slavery if they chose, when 
it was known in advance by the conspiratuis, that the couit was 
to decide that ueilher Cougrets uur the people could t>o exclude 



176 THE SPEECHES OF 

slavery. These charges are more distinctly made than anything 
else in the speech. 

Judge Douglas has carefully read and re-read that speech. 
He has not, so fur as I know, contradicted those charges. In 
the two speeches which I heard, he certainly did not. On his 
own tacit admission I renew that charge. I charge him with 
having been a party to that conspiracy, and to that deception, fur 
the sole purpose of nationalizing slavery. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 177 



GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL OF THE TERRITORIES 
vs. SQUATTER SOVEREIGNTY. 

DELIVERED AT COLUMBUS, OHIO, SEPTEMBER, 1859. 

Mr. Lincoln spoke twice during the Ohio gubernatorial 
campaign of 1859, in response to an invitation from the 
Republicans, and replying to Judge Douglas. He spoke 
first at the capital of the State, as follows. 

DEMOCRATIC MISREPRESENTATIONS CORRECTED. 

Fellow-citizen s of tue State of Ouio : I cannot fail to 
remember that I appear for the first time before an audience ia 
this now great State, — an audience that is accustomed to hear 
such speakers as Corwin, and Chase, and Wade, and many- 
other renowned men ; and remembering this, I feel that it will 
be well for you as for me, that you should not raise your expec- 
tations to that standard to which you would have been justi- 
fied in raising them, had one of these distinguished men ap- 
peared before j'ou. You would, perhaps, be only preparing a 
disappointment for yourselves, and, as a consequence of your dis- 
appointment, mortification to me. I hope, therefore, that you will 
commence with very moderate expectations; and, perhaps, if 
you will give me your attention, I shall be able to interest you 
to a moderate degree. 

Appearing here for the first time in my life, I have been some- 
what embarrassed for a topic by way of introduction to my 
speech ; but I have been relieved from that embarrassment by 
an introduction which the Ohio Statesman newspaper gave me 
12 



178 THE SPEECHES OF 

this morning. In tliis paper I have read an article, in which, 
among other statements, T find the foUowing : — 

" In debating with Senator Douglas during the memorable 
contest la>t fall, Mr. Lincoln declared in favor of negro suffrage, 
and attempted to defend that vile conception against the Little 
Giant." 

I mentior! this now, at the opening of my remarks, for the 
purpose of making three comments upon it. The first I have 
already announced, — it furni->^hes me an introductory topic; 
the second is to sliow that the gentleman is mistaken ; thirdly, 
to give him an opportunity to correct it. 

In the first place, in regard to this matter being a mistake. 
I have found that it is not entirely safe, when one is misrepre- 
sented under his very nose, to allow the misrepresentation to go 
uncontradicted. I therefore propose, here, at the outset, not 
only to say that this is a misrepresentation, but to show conclu- 
f-ively that it is so ; and you will bear with me while I read a 
couple of extracts from that very "memorable" debate with 
Judge Douglas last year, to which this newspaper refers. In the 
first pitched battle which Senator Douglas and myself had, at 
the town of Ottawa, I used the language which I will now read. 
Having been previously reading an extract, I continued as fol- 
lows : — 

" Now, gentlemen, I don't want to read at any greater length, 
but this is the true complexion of all I have ever said in regard 
to the institution of slavery, and the black race. This is the 
whole of it, and anytliing that argues me into his idea of per- 
fect social and political equality with the negro, is but a specious 
and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a 
horse-chestnut to bo a chestnut horse. I will say here, while upon 
this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to in- 
terfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it 
exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I 
have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce 
political and social equality between the white and the bl;ick 
races. There is a physical dilibrcuce between the two, which, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 179 

in my jiKigment, will probably forbid their ever living to- 
getlier upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch 
as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, 
as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I 
belong having the superior position. I have never said any- 
thing to the contrary, but I hold that, notwithstanding all 
this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not enti- 
tled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of 
Independence, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white 
man. I agree with Judge Douglas, he is not my equal in many 
respects, — certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intel- 
lectual endowments. But in the right to eat the bread, without 
leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my eijiicd, 
and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living 
inan.^' 

Upon a subsequent occasion, when the reason for making a 
statement like this recurred, I said : — 

•' While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman 
called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of pro- 
ducing perfect equality between the negroes and white people. 
While I had not proposed to myself, on this occasion, to say 
much on that subject, yet, as the question was asked me, I 
thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying some- 
thing in regard to it. I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever 
have been, in favor of bringing about, in any way, the social 
and political equality of the white and black races ; that I am 
not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of 
negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold ofBce, or intermarry 
with the white people ; and I will say, in addition to this, that 
there is a physical difference between the white and black races, 
which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together 
on terms of social and political equality. And, inasmuch as 
they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must 
be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any 
other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned 



180 THE SPEECHES OF 

to the white race. I say, upon this occasion, I do not perceive 
that, because the white man is to have the superior position, the 
nci^ro should be denied everything. I do not understand that, 
because I do not want a negro woman for a slave, I must neces- 
sarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just 
let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly 
never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So, 
it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making 
cither slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this, that I 
have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman, or child, 
who was in favor of producing perfect equality, social and 
political, between negroes and white men. I recollect of but 
one distinguished instance that I ever heard of so frequently as 
to be satisfied of its correctness, and that is the case of Judge 
Douglas's old friend, Col. Richard M. Johnson. I will also 
add to the remarks I have made, (for I am not going to enter 
at large upon this subject,) that I have never had the least 
apprehension that I or my friends would marry negroes, if there 
was no law to keep them from it ; but, as Judge Douglas and 
his friends seem to be in great apprehension that they might, if 
there were no law to keep them from it, I give him the most 
solemn pledge that I will, to the very last, stand by the law of 
the State, which forbids the marrying of white people with 
negroes." 

There, my friends, you have briefly what I have, upon former 
occasions, said upon the subject to which this newspaper, to the 
extent of its ability, has drawn the public attention. In it you 
not only perceive, as a probability, that in that contest I did not 
at any time say I was in favor of negro suffrage ; but the abso- 
lute proof that twice, — once substantially, and once expressly, 
— I declared against it. Having shown you this, there remains 
but a word of comment upon that newspaper article. It is 
this : that I presume the editor of that paper is an honest and 
truth-loving man, and that Tie will be greatly obliged to me for 
furnishing him thus early an opportunity to correct the misrep- 
resentation he has made, before it has run so long that malicious 
people can call him a liar. 



ABRAHAM LINCOIJiT. 181 



DOUGLAS AND THE EXTENSION OF SLATERY. 

The Giant himself has been here recently. I have seen a 
brief report of his speech. If it were otherwise unpleasant to 
me to introduce the subject of the negro as a topic for discus- 
sion, I might be somewhat relieved by the fact that he dealt 
exclusively in that subject while he was here. I shall, there- 
fore, without much hesitation or diffidence, enter upon this 
subject. 

The American people, on the first day of January, 1854, 
found the African slave-trade prohibited by a law of Congress. 
In a majority of the States of this Union, they found African 
slavery, or any other sort of slavery, prohibited by State con- 
stitutions. They also found a law existing, supposed to be 
valid, by which slavery was excluded from almost all the terri- 
tory the United States then owned. This was the condition of 
the country, with reference to the institution of slavery, on the 
first of January, 1854. A few days after that, a bill was intro- 
duced into Congress, which ran through its regular course in 
the two branches of the national legislature, and finally passed 
into a law in the month of May, by which the act of Congress 
prohibiting slavery from going into the Territories of the United 
States was repealed. In connection with the law itself, and, in 
fact, in the terms of the law, the then existing prohibition was 
not only repealed, but there was a declaration of a purpose on 
the part of Congress never thereafter to exercise any power that 
they might have, real or supposed, to prohibit the extension or 
spread of slavery. This was a very great change ; for the law 
thus repealed was of more than thirty years' standing. Follow- 
ing rapidly upon the heels of this action of Congress, a decision 
of the Supreme Court is made, by which it is declared that 
Congress, if it desires to prohibit the spread of slavery into the 
Territories, has no constitutional power to do so. Not only so, 
but that decision lays down principles, which, if pushed to their 
logical conclusion, — I say, pushed to their logical conclusion,— 
would decide that the constitutions of free States, forbidding 



182 THE srEECHES OP 

slavery, are themselves unconstitutional. Mark mc, I do not 
say the Judge said tbis, and let no mau say I alErra the Judge 
used these words ; but I only say it is my opinion that what 
he did say, if pressei to its logical conclusion, would inevitably 
result thus. 

THE EEPUBLICAN PARTY ITS PURPOSE. 

Looting at these things, the Republican party, as I under- 
stand its principles and policy, believe that there is great dan- 
o-er of the institution of slavery being spread out and extended, 
until it is ultimately made alike lawful in all the States of this 
Union ; so believing, to prevent that incidental and ultimate con- 
summation, is the original and chief purpose of the Ilepublican 
organization. I say, " chief purpose " of the Republican or- 
ganization ; for it is certainly true that if the national house 
shall fall into the hands of the Republicans, they will have to 
attend to all the other matters of national house-keeping, as 
well as this. The chief and real purpose of the Republican 
party is eminently conservative. It proposes nothing save and 
except to restore this Government to its original tone in regard 
to this element of slavery, and there to maintain it, looking for 
no further change in reference to it, than that which the original 
franiers of the Government themselves expected and looked for- 
ward to. 

ITS DANGER. 

The chief danger to this purpose of the Republican party is 
not just now the revival of the African slave-trade, or the pas- 
sa^Q of a congressional slave code, or the declaring of a second 
Dred Scott decision, making slavery lawful in all the States. 
These are not pressing us just now. They arc not quite ready 
yet. The authors of these measures know that we are too 
strong for them ; but they will be upon us in due time, and we 
shall be grappling with them hand to hand, if they are not now 
headed off. They are not now the chief danger to the purpose 
of the Republican organization ; but the most imminent danger 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 183 

that DOW tlireatetis that purpose is that insidious Douglas pop- 
ular sovereignty. This is tlie miner and sapper. While it 
does not propose to revive the African slave-trade, nor to pass a 
slave code, nor to make a second Dred Scott decision, it is pre- 
paring us for the onslaught and charge of these ultimate enemies 
when they shall be ready to come on, and the word of command 
for thera to advance shall be given. I say this Douglas pop- 
ular sovereignty, — for there is a broad distinction, as I now 
understand it, between that article and a genuine popular 
sovereignty. 

GENUINE POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

I believe there is a genuine popular sovereignty. I think a 
dclinltion of genuine popular sovereignty, In the abstract, would 
be about this : That each man shall do precisely as he pleases 
with himself, and with all those things which exclusively con- 
cern him. Applied to government, this principle would be, that 
a general government shall do all those things which pertain to 
it, and all the local governments shall do precisely as they 
please, in respect to those matters which exclusively concern 
them. I understand that this government of the United States, 
under which we live, is based upon this principle ; and I am 
misunderstood if it is supposed that I have any war to make 
upon that priinciple. 

Douglas's bogus article. 

Now, what is Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty ? It is, 
as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to make 
a slave of another man, neither that other man nor anybody 
else has a right to object. Applied in government, as he seeks 
to apply it, it is this : If, in a new territory into which a few 
people are beginning to enter for the purpose of making their 
homes, they choose to either exclude slavery from their limits, or 
to establish it there, however one or the other may affect the 
persons to be enslaved, or the infinitely greater number of per- 
sons who are afterward to inhabit that territory, or the other 



184 THE SPEECHES OP 

members of the families of communities, of whicli they are but 
an incipient member, or the general head of the family of States 
as parent of all, — however their action may affect one or the 
other of these, there is no power or right to interfere. That is 
Douglas's popular sovereignty applied. 

THE HARPER ESSAY. 

IIo has a good deal of trouble with popular sovereignty. His 
explanations explanatory of explanations explained are intermi- 
nable. The most lengthy, and, as I suppose, the most maturely 
considered of his long series of explanations is his great essay 
in Harper's 3Iagazine. I will not attempt to enter on any very 
thorough investigation of his argumc-nt, as there made and pre- 
sented. I will nevertheless occupy a good portion of your time 
here in drawing your attention to certain points in it. Such of 
you as may have road this document, will have perceived that 
the Judge, early in the document, quotes from two persons as 
belonging to the Republican party, without naming them, but 
who can readily be recognized as being Gov. Seward, of New 
York, and myself. It is true that, exactly fifteen months ago 
this day, I believe, I, for the first time, expressed a sentiment 
upon this subject, and in such a manner that it should get into 
print, that the public might see it beyond the circle of my 
hearers ; and ray expression of it, at that time, is the quotation 
that Judge Douglas makes. He has not made the quotation 
with accuracy, but justice to him requires me to say that it is 
sufiiciently accurate not to change its sense. 

The sense of that quotation condensed, is this, — that this 
slavery element is a durable element of discord among us, and 
that we shall probably not have perfect peace, in this country, 
with it, until it either masters the free principle in our govern- 
ment, or is so far mastered by the free principle as for the pub- 
lic mind to rest in the belief that it is going to its end. This 
sentiment, which I now express in this way, was, at no great 
distance of time, perhaps in different language, and in connec- 
tion with some collateral ideas, expressed by Gov. Seward. 



ABRAHAM LTNCOT,N. 185 

Judge Douglas has been so much annoyed by the expression of 
that sentiment, that lie has constantly, I believe, in almost all 
his speeches since it was uttered, been referring to it. I find 
he alluded to it in his speech here, as well as in the copy-right 
essay. I do not now enter upon this for the purpose of making 
an elaborate argument to show that we were right in the expres- 
sion of that sentiment. In other words, I shall not stop to say 
all that might properly be said upon this point ; but I only ask 
your attention to it for the purpose of making one or two points 
upon it. 

THE ELEMENT OF DISCORD. 

If you will read the copy-right essay, you will discover that 
Judge Douglas himself says a controversy between the American 
Colonies and the Government of Great Britain began on the 
slavery question, in 1G99, and continued from that time until 
the Revolution ; and, while he did not say so, we all know that 
it has continued with more or less violence ever since the llevo- 
lution. 

Then we need not appeal to history, to the declarations of 
the framers of the Government, but we know from Judge 
Douglas himself, that slavery began to be an element of discord 
among the white people of this country as far back as 1690, or 
one hundred and sixty years ago, or five generations of men, — 
counting thirty years to a generation. Now, it would seem to 
me that it might have occurred to Judge Douglas, or anybody 
who had turned his attention to these facts, that there was some- 
thing in the nature of that thing, slavery, somewhat durable for 
mischief and discord. 

TUE TRUE VIEW OF IT. 

There is another point I desire to make in regard to this 
matter, before I leave it. From the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion down to 1820, is the precise period of our history, when we 
had comparative peace upon this question, — the precise period 
of time when we came nearer to having peace about it than any 



186 THE SPEECHES OF 

otbcr time of that entire one hundred and sixty years, in which 
he says it began, or of the eighty jx-ars of our own Constitution. 
Then it would be worth our wbilo to sto]! and examine into the 
probable reason of our coming nearer to having peace then than at 
any other time. This was the precise period of time in which our 
fathers adopted, and during which they followed a policy 
restricting the spread of slavery, and the whole Union was 
acquiescing in it. The whole country looked forward to the 
ultimate extinction of the institution. It was when a policy 
had been adopted, and was prevailing, which led all just and 
rightminded men to suppose that slavery was gradually coming 
to an end, and that they might be quiet about it, watching it as 
it expired. T think Judge Douglas might have perceived that, 
too ; and whether he did or not, it is worth the attention of fair- 
minded men, here and elsewhere, to consider whether that is not 
the truth of the case. If he had looked at these two facts, that 
this matter has been an clement of discord for one hundred and 
sixty years among this people, and that the only comparative 
peace we have had about it was when that policy prevailed in 
this Government, which he now wars upon, he might then, per- 
haps, have been brouglit to a more just appreciation of what I 
said fifteen months ago, — that " a house divided against itself 
cannot stand. I believe that this Government cannot endure 
permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the 
house to fall. I do not expect the Union to dissolve ; but I do 
expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, 
or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public mind will rest 
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or 
its advocates will push it forward, until it shall become alike 
lawful in all the States, old as well as new, North as well as 
South." That was my sentiment at that time. In connection 
with it, I said, " We arc now far into the fifth year since a pol- 
icy was inaugurated, with the avowed object and confident prom- 
ise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operatiua 
of the policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 187 

constantly augmented." I now say to you here, tbafc vie are 
advanced still farther into the sixth year since that policy of 
Judge Douglas, — that popular sovereignty of his, for quietin" 
the slavery question, — was made the national policy. Fifteen 
months more have been added since I uttered that sentiment, 
and I call upon you, and all other rightminded men, to say 
whether that fifteen months have belied or corroborated my 
words. 

CHEERS FOR JOIIN HICKMAN. 

While I am here upon this subject^ I cannot but express grat- 
itude that this true view of this element of discord among us, — 
as I believe it is, — is attracting more and more attention. I 
do not believe that Governor Seward uttered that sentiment be- 
cause I had done so before, but because he reflected upon this sub- 
ject, and .saw the truth of it. Nor do I believe, because Gov. 
Seward or I uttered it, that Mr. Hickman, of Pennsylvania, in 
difflirent language, since that time, has declared his belief in the 
antagonism which exists between the principles of liliertj'- and 
slavery. You see we are multiplying. Now, while I am 
speaking of Hickman, let me say, I know but little about him. 
I. have never seen him, and know scarcely anything about the 
man ; but I will say this much of him : Of all the anti-Lecomp- 
ton Democracy that have been brought to my notice, he alone 
has the true, genuine ring of the metal. And now, without in- 
dorsing anything else ho has said, I will ask this audience to 
give three cheers for Hickman. [The audience responded with 
three rousing cheers for Hickman.] 

Douglas's assumption. 

Another point in the copy-right essay to which I would ask 
your attention, is rather a feature to be extracted from the whole 
thing, than from any express declaration of it at any point. It 
is a general feature of that document, and indeed, of all of Judge 
Douglas's discussions of this question, that the Territories of the 



188 THE SPEECHES OP 

United States and tbe States of this Union arc exactly alike, — 
that there is no diiTcrencc between them at all, — that the Con- 
stitution applies to the Territories precisely as it does to the 
States, — and that the United States Government, under the 
Constitution, may not do in a State what it may not do in a 
Territory, and what it must do in a State, it must do in a Ter- 
ritory. Gentlemen, is that a true view of the case ? It is 
necessary for this squatter sovereignty ; but is it true ? 

Let us consider. What does it depend upon ? It depends 
altogether upon the proposition that the States must, without the 
interference of the General Government, do all those things that 
pertain exclusively to themselves, — that arc local in their na- 
ture, — that have no connection with the General Government. 
After Judge Douglas has established this proposition, which 
nobody disputes or ever has disputed, he proceeds to assume, 
witliout proving it, that slavery is one of those little, unimjiort- 
ant, trivial matters which are of just about as much consequence 
as the question would be to me, whether my neighbor should 
raise horned cattle or plant tobacco ; that there is no moral 
(|uestion about it, but that it is altogether a matter of dollars 
and cents ; that when a new Territory is opened for settlement, 
the first man who goes into it may plant there a thing which, 
like the Canada thistle or some other of those pests of the soil, 
cannot bo dug out by the millions of men who will come there- 
after ; that it is one of those little things that is so trivial in its 
nature that it has no effect upon anybody save the few men who 
first plant upon the soil ; that it is not a thing which in any way 
affects the family of communities composing these States, nor 
any way endangers the General Government. Judge Douglas 
ignores altogether the very well-known fact, that wo never had 
a serious menace to our })olitical existence, except it sprang from 
tliis thing, which he chooses to regard as only upon a par with 
onions and potatoes. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 189 

A CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTY IN THIS LOGIC. 

Turn it, and contemplate it in another view. lie snys, that 
according to bis popular sovereignty, the General Government 
may give to the Territories governors, judges, marshals, secre- 
taries, and all the other chief men to govern them, but they must 
not toucli upon this other question. Why ? The question of 
•who shall be governor of a Territory for a year or two, and pass 
away, without his track being left upon the soil, or an act 
which he did for good or for evil being left behind, is a question 
of vast national magnitude. It is so much opposed in its nature 
to locality, that the nation itself must decide it ; while this other 
matter of planting slavery upon a soil, — a thing which once 
planted cannot be eradicated by the succeeding millions who 
have as much right there as the first comers, or, if eradicated, 
not without infinite difBculty and a long struggle, — he considers 
the power to prohibit it as one of these little, local, trivial things 
that the nation ought not to say a word about ; that it affects 
nobody save the few men who are there. 

Take these two things and consider them together, present 
the question of planting a State with the institution of slavery 
by the side of a question of who shall be governor of Kansas 
for a year or two, and is there a man here, — is there a man on 
earth, — who would not say the governor question is the little 
one, and the slavery question is the great one '? I ask any honest 
Democrat if the small, the local, and the trivial and temporary 
question is not, Who shall be Governor? While the durable, 
the important, and the mischievous one is, Shall this soil be 
planted with slavery ? 

This is an idea, I suppose, which has arisen in Judge Doug- 
las's mind from his peculiar structure. I suppose the institution 
of slavery really looks small to him. He is so put up by nature 
ihat a lash upon his back would hurt him, but a lash upon any- 
body else's back does not hurt him. That is the build of the 
man, and consequently he looks upon the matter of slavery ia 
this unimportant light. 



190 THE SPEECHES OF 

THR CnoiCE OF DEMOCRATIC AUTHORITIES. 

Judge Douglas ought to remember, ■when he is endeavoring to 
force this policy upon the American people, that while he is put 
up in that way a good many are not. He ought to remember 
tliat there was once in this country a man by the name of 
Thomas Jefferson, supposed to be a Democrat, — a man whose 
principles and policy are not very prevalent amongst Democrats 
to-day, it is true ; — but that man did not take exactly this view 
of the in.^ignilicance of the element of slavery which our friend 
Judge Douglas does. In contemplation of this thing, we all 
know he was led to exclaim, " I tremble for my country when I 
remember that God is just ! " We know he looked upon it 
when he thus expressed himself. There was danger to this 
country, — danger of the avenging justice of God in that little 
unimportant popular sovereignty question of Judge Douglas. 
He supposed there was a question of God's eternal justice 
wrapped up in the enslaving of any race of men, or any man, 
and that those who did so braved the arm of Jehovah ; that 
when a nation thus dared the Almighty, every frientl of that 
nation had cause to dread his wrath. Choose ye between Jeffer- 
son and Douglas as to what is the true view of this element 
among us. 

KANSAS AND ADMISSION TO TUB UNION. 

There is another little difficulty about this matter of treating 
the territories and States alike in all things, to which I ask your 
attention, and I shall leave this branch of the case. If there is 
no difference between them, why not make the territories States 
at once ? What is the reason that Kansas was not fit to come 
into the Union when it was organized into a Territory, in Judge 
Douglas's view? Can any of you tell any reason why it should 
not have come into the Union at once V They are fit, as he 
thinks, to decide upon the slavery question, — the largest and 
most important with which they could possibly deal, — what 
could they do by coming into the Union that they are not fit t» 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 191 

do, according to his view, by staying out of it? Oh, thoy aro 
not fit to sit in Congress and decide upon the rates of postage, 
or questions of ad valorem, or specific duties on foreign goods, 
or live-oak timber contracts ; they are not fit to decide these 
vastly important matters, which are rational in their import, but 
they aro fit, "from the jump," to decide this little negro ques- 
tion. But, gentlemen, the case is too plain ; I occupy too much 
time on this head, and I pass on. 

"KICKING THE FAT INTO THE FIRE." 

Near the close of the copy-right essay, the Judge, I think, 
comes very near kicking his own fat into the fire. I did not 
think, when I commenced these remarks, that I should read from 
that article, but Itjiow believe I will. 

" This exposition of the history of these measures shows con- 
clusively that the anthers of the compromise measures of 1850, 
and of the Kansas-Nebraska act of 18.j4, as well as the mem- 
bers of the Continental Congress of 1774, and the founders of 
our system of government subsequent to the Revolution, regarded 
the people of the Territories and Colonies as political commu- 
nities which were entitled to a free and exclusive power of legis- 
lation in their provisional legislatures, where their representa- 
tion could alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and inter- 
nal pohty." 

When the Judge saw that putting in the word " slavery " 
would contradict his own history, he put in what he knew would 
pass as synonymous with it, "internal polity." Whenever we 
find that in one of his speeches, the substitute is used in this 
mannner ; and I can tell you the reason. It would be too bald 
a contradiction to say slavery, but " internal polity " is a 
general phrase which would pass in some quarters, and which 
he hopes will pass with the reading community for the same 
thing : — 

" This right pertains to the people collectively, as a law- 
abiding and peaceful community, and not in the isolated indi- 
viduals who may wander upon the public domain in violation of 



192 THE SPEECHES OF 

the law. It can only be exercised wliere there are inhabitants 
sufficient to constitute a government, and capable of performing 
its various functions and duties, a fact to be ascertained and de- 
termined by " — who do you think ? Judge Douglas says, " by 
Congress? " 

" Whether the number shall be fixed at ten, fifteen, or twenty 
thousand inhabitants, does not affect the principle." 

THE FOLLY OF IT. 

Now I have only a few comments to make. Popular sover- 
eignty, by his own words, does not pertain to the few persons 
who wander upon the public domain in violation of law. We 
have liis words for that. When it does pertain to them, is when 
they are sufficient to be formed into an organized political cora- 
nmnity, and he fixes the minimum for that at 10,000, and the 
maximum at 20,000. Now I would like to know what is to be 
done with the 9,000 ? Are they all to be treated, until they 
are large enough to be organized into a political community, as 
wanderers ujion the public land in violation of law ? And if so 
treated and driven out, at what point of time would there ever 
be ten thousand ? If they were not driven out, but remained 
there as trespassers upon the public land in violation of the law 
can they establish slavery there ? No, the Judge says popular 
sovereignty don't pertain to them then. Can they exclude it 
then ? No, popular sovereignty don't pertain to them then. I 
would like to know, in the case covered by the essay, what con- 
dition the people of the Territory are in before they reach the 
number of ten thousand ? 

WHERE THE JUDGE REACHES. 

But the main point I wish to ask attention to is, that the 
question as to when they shall have reached a sufficient number 
to be formed into a regular organized community, is to be de- 
cided " by Congress. " Judge Douglas says so. Well, gen- 
tlemen, that is about all we want. No, that is all the Southern- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 193 

ers want. That is what all those who are for slavery want. 
They do not want Congress to prohibit slavery from coming into 
the new Territories, and they do not want popular sovereignty 
to hinder it; and as Congress is to say when they arc ready to 
be organized, all that the South has to do is to get Congress to 
hold off. Let Congress hold off until they are ready to be ad- 
mitted as a State, and the South has all it wants in taking 
slavery into and planting it in all the Territories that we now 
have, or hereafter may have. In a word, the whole thing, at a 
dash of the pen, is at last put in the power of Congress ; for if 
they do not have this popular sovereignty until Congress or- 
ganizes them, I ask if it at last does not come from Congress? 
If, at last, it amounts to anything at all, Congress gives it to 
them. I submit this rather for your reflection than for com- 
ment. After all that is said, at last, by a dash of the pen, 
everything that has gone before is undone, and he puts the 
whole question under the control of Congress. After fighting 
through more than three hours, if you undertake to read it, he 
at last places the whole matter under the control of that power 
which he had been contending against, and arrives at a result 
directly contrary to what he had been laboring to do. He at 
last leaves the whole matter to the control of Congress. 

THE OBJECTS OF TUE HARPER ARTICLE. 

There are two main objects, as I understand it, of this Har- 
per's Magazine essay. One was to show, if possible, that the 
men of our revolutionary times were in favor of his popular 
sovereignty ; and the other was to show that the Dred Scott 
decision had not entirely squelched out this pppular sovereignty. 
I do not propose, in regard to this argument drawn from the 
history of former times, to enter into a detailed examination 
of the historical statements he has made. I have the impresr 
sion that they are inaccurate in a gi-eat many instances. Some- 
times in positive statement, but very much more inaccurate by 
the suppression of statements that really belong to the history. 
But I do not propose to aflarm that this is so to any very great 
13 



194 THE SPEECHES OP 

extent ; or to enter into a very minute examination of his his- 
torical statements. I avoid doin^so upon this principle, — that 
if it were important for me to pass out of this lot in the least 
period of time possihle, and I came to that fence and saw ly a 
calculation of my known strength and agility that I could clear 
it at a bound, it would be folly to stop and consider whether 
I could or not crawl through a crack. So I say of the whole 
history, contained in bis essay, where he endeavored to link the 
men of the Revolution to popular sovereignty. It only re- 
quires an effort to leap out of it, — a single bound, to be entirely 
successful. If you read it over you will find that he quotes 
here and there from documents of the revolutionary times, 
tending to show that the people of the Colonies were desirous 
of regulating their own concerns in their own way, that the 
British Government should not interfere ; that at one time they 
struggled with the British Government to be permitted to exr 
elude the African slave-trade ; if not directly, to be permitted 
to exclude it indirectly by taxation sufficient to discourage and 
destroy it. From these and many things of this sort, Judge 
Douglas argues that they were in favor of the people of our 
own Territories excluding slavery if they wanted to, or plant- 
ing it there if they wanted to, doing just as they pleased from 
the time thoy settled upon the Territory. Now, however his 
history may apply, and whatever of his argument there may be 
that is sound and accurate or unsound and inaccurate, if we 
can find out what these men did themselves do upon this very 
question of slavery in the Territories, does it not end the whole 
thing? If, after all this labor and effort to show that the men 
of the Revolution- were in favor of his popular sovereignty 
and his mode of dealing with slavery in the Territories, we 
can show that these very men took hold of that subject, and 
dealt with it, we can see for ourselves ho% they dealt with 
it. It is not a matter of argument or inference, but we know 
what they thought about it. 



ABEAHAM LINCOLN. 195 



OMISSIONS OF THE AUTHOR. 

It is precisely upon that part of the history of the coantry 
that one important omission is made by Judge Douglas. He 
selects parts of the history of the United States upon the sub- 
ject of slavery, and treats it as the whole, omitting from his 
historical sketch the legislation of Congress in regard to l!ie 
admission of Missouri, by which the Missouri Oompron)i.se was 
established, and slavery excluded from a country half as lai-ge 
as the present United States. All this is left out of his history, 
and in no wise alluded to by him, so far as I can remember, save 
once, when he makes a remark, that upon his principle the Sij- 
preme Court were authorized to pronounce a decision that the 
act culled the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. All 
that history has been left out. But this part of the history of 
the country was not made by the men of the Revolution. 

ORDINANCE OF 1787. 

Thei'e was another part of our political history made by the 
very men who were the actors in the Revolution, which has 
taken the name of the Ordinance of '87. Let me bring that 
history to your attention. In 1784, I believe, this same Mr. 
Jefferson drew up an ordinance for the government of the coun- 
try upon which we now stand ; or rather a frame or draft of an 
ordinance for the government of this country, here in Ohio, our 
neighbors in Indiana, us who live in Illinois, our neighbors in 
Wisconsin and Michigan. In that ordinance, drawn up not only 
for the government of that territory, but for the territories South 
of the Ohio River, Mr. Jefferson expressly provided for the pro- 
hibition of slavery. Judge Douglas says, and perhaps is right, 
that that provision was lost from that ordinance. I believe that 
is true. When the vote was taken upon it, a majority of all 
present in the Congress of the confederation voted for it ; but 
there were so many absentees that those voting for it did not 
make a clear majority necessary, and it was lost. But three 
years after that the Congress of the confederation were together 



196 THE SPEECHES OF 

again, and they adopted a new ordinance for the government of 
thi.s Northwest Territory, not contemplating territory South of 
the river, for the States owning, that Territory had hitherto re- 
fniined from giving it to the General Government ; hence they 
made the ordinance to apply only to what the Government 
owned. In that, the provision excluding slavery was inserted 
and passed unanimonsly, or at any rate it passed and became a 
part of the law of the land. Under that ordinance we live. 
First here in Ohio you were a Territory, then an enabling act 
was passed, authorizing you to form a constitution and State 
government, provided it was republican and not in conflict with 
the Ordinance of '87. When you framed your constitution and 
presented it for admission, I think you will find the legislation 
upon the subject will show that, " whereas you had formed a 
constitution that was republican, and not in conflict with the Ordi- 
nance of '87," therefore you were admitted upon equal footing 
with the original States. The same -process in a few years 
was gone through with in Indiana, and so with Illinois, and the 
same substantially with Michigan and Wisconsin. 

ADMISSION OF NEW STATES. 

Not only did that ordinance prevail, but it was constantly 
looked to whenever a step was taken by a new Territory to be- 
come a State. Congress always turned their attention to it, 
and in all their movements upon this subject, they traced their 
course by that Ordinance of '87. When they admitted new 
States, they advertised them of this ordinance as a part of the 
legislation of this country. They did so because they had traced 
the Ordinance of '87 throughout the history of this country. 
Begin with the men of the Revolution, and go down for sixty 
entire years, and until the last scrap of that Territory comes 
into the Union in the form of the State of Wisconsin, — every 
thing was made to conform with the Ordinance of '87, exclud- 
ing slavery from that vast extent of country. 

I omitted to mention in the right place that the Constitution 
of the United States was in process of being framed when that 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 197 

Ordinance was made by the Congress of the Confederation ; 
and one of the first acts of Congress itself, under the new Con- 
stitution itself, was to give force to that ordinance by puttiniy 
power to carry it out in the hands of the new ofiicers under the 
Constitution, in the place of the old ones, who had been legis- 
lated out of existence by the change in the Government from 
the Confederation to the Constitation. Not only so, but I be- 
lieve Indiana once or twice, if not Ohio, petitioned the General 
Government for the privilege of suspending that provision and 
allowing them to have slaves. A report made by Mr. Randolph 
of Virginia, himself a slaveholder, was directly against it, and 
the action was to refuse them the privilege of violating the Ordi- 
nance of '87. 

AN EXTRAORDINARY SPECTACLE. 

This period of history, which I have run over briefly, is, I 
presume, as familiar to most of this assembly as any other part 
of fhe history of our country. I suppose that few of my hear- 
ers ar^ not as familiar with that part of history as I am, and I 
only mention it to recall your attention to it at this time. And 
hence I ask how extraordinary a thing it is that a man who has 
occupied a position upon the floor of the Senate of the United 
States, who is now in his third term, and who looks to see the 
government of this whole country fall into his own hands, pre- 
tending to give a truthful and accurate history of the slavery 
question in this country, should so entirely ignore the whole of 
that portion of our history, — the most important of all. Is it 
not a most extraordinary spectacle, that a man should stand up 
and ask for any confidence in his statements, who sets out as he 
does with portions of history, calling upon the people to believe 
that it is a true and fair representation, when the leading part 
and controlling feature of the whole history is carefully sup- 
pressed 't 

But the mere leaving out is not the most remarkable feature 
of this most remarkable essay. His proposition is to establish 
that the leading men of the Revolution were for his great prin- 



198 THE SPEECHES OF 

ciple of non-intervention by the Government in tbe question of 
slavery in the Territories ; while history shows that they decid- 
ed in the cases actually brought before them, in exactly the con- 
trary way, and he knows it. Not only did they so decide at 
that time, but they stuck to it during sixty years, through thick 
and thin, as long as there was one of the revolutionary heroes 
upon the stage of political action. Through their whole course, 
from first to last, they clung to freedom. And now he asks the 
conmiunity to believe that the men of the Revolution were in 
favor of his great principle, when we have the naked history 
that they themselves dealt with this very subject-matter of his 
principle, and utterly repudiated his principle, acting upon a 
precisely contrary ground. It is as impudent and absurd as if 
a prosecuting attorney should stand up before a jury, and ask 
them to convict A as the murderer of B, while B was walking 
alive before them. 

"stealing tue livery of heaven to serve the devil in." 

I say again, if Judge Douglas asserts that the men of the 
Picvolutiou acted upon principles by which, to be consistent with 
themselves, they ought to have adopted his popular sovereignty, 
then, upon a consideration of his own argument, he had a right 
to make you believe that they understood the principles of gov- 
ernment, but misapplied them, — that he has arisen to enlighten 
tlie world as to the just application of this principle. He has a 
right to try to persuade you that he understands their principles 
better than they did, and, therefore, he will apply them now, 
not as they did, but as they ought to have done. He has a 
right to go before the community, and try to convince them of 
this ; but he has no right to attempt to impose upon any one 
the belief that these men themselves approved of his great 
principle. There are two ways of establishing a proposition. 
One is by trying to demonstrate it upon reason ; and the other 
is, to show that great men in former times have thought so and 
so, and thus to pass it by the weight of pure authority. Now, 
if Judge Douglas will demonstrate somehow that this is popu- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 199 

lar sovereignty, — the right of one man to make a slave of 
another, without any right in that other, or any one else to ob- 
ject, — demonstrate it as Euclid demonstrated propositions, — 
there is no objection. But when he comes forward, scokin"- to 
carry a principle by bringing to it the authority of men who 
themselves utterly repudiate that principle, I ask that he shall 
not be permitted to do it. 

" STICK TO THE FATHERS, JUDGE." 

I see, in the Judge's speech here, a short sentence in these 
words : " Our fathers, when they formed this Government under 
which wo live, understood this question just as well and even 
better than we do now." That is true ; T stick to that. I will 
stand by Judge Douglas in that to the bitter end. And now, 
Judge Douglas, come and stand by me, and truthfully show 
how they acted, understanding it better than we do. All I ask 
of you, Judge Douglas, is to stick to the proposition that the 
men of the Revolution understood this subject better than we 
do now, and with that better understanding they acted better 
than you are trying to act now. 

DllED SCOTT DECISION. 

I wish to say something now in regard to the Dred Scott 
decision, as dealt with by Judge Douglas. In that " memorable 
debate " between Judge Douglas and myself, last year, the 
Judge thought fit to commence a process of catechizing me, and 
at Freeport I answered bis questions, and propounded some to 
him. Among others propounded to him was one that I have 
here now. The substance, as I remember it, is, " Can the peo- 
ple of a United States Territory, under the Dred Scott decision, 
in any lawful way, against the wish of any citizen of the United 
States, exclude slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of 
a State constitution ? " lie answered that they could lawfully 
exclude slavery from tJia United States Territories, notwithstand- 
ing the Dred Scott decision. There was something abt)ut that 
answer that has probably been a trouble to the Judge ever 
since. 



200 THE SPEECHES OF 

WHICH HORN OF THE DILEMMA ? 

The Dred Scott decision expressly gives every citizen of the 
United States a right to carry his slaves into the United States 
Territories. And now there was some inconsistency in saying 
that the decision was right, and saying, too, that the people of 
the Territory could lawfully drive slavery out again. "When all 
the trash, the words, the collateral matter, was cleared away from 
it, — all the chaff was fanned out of it, — it was a bare absurd- 
ity, — no less than that a thing may he lawfully driven away 
from where it has a laivful right to be. Clear it of all the 
verbiage, and that is the naked truth of his proposition, — that 
a thing may be lawfully driven from the place where it has a 
lawful right to stay. Well, it was because the Judge couldn't 
help seeing this, that he has had so much trouble with it ; and 
what I want to ask your special attention to, just now, is to re- 
mind you, if you have not noticed the fact, that the Judge does 
not any longer say that the people can exclude slavery. He 
does not say so in the copy-right essay ; he did not say so in the 
speech that he made here ; and, so far as I know, since his re- 
election to the Senate, he has never said, as he did at Freeport, 
that the people of the Territories can exclude slavery. He de- 
sires that you, who wish the Territories to remain free, should 
believe that he stands by that position ; but he does not say it 
himself. He escapes, to some extent, the absurd position I have 
stated, by changing his language entirely. What be says now 
is something different in language, and we will consider whether 
it is not different in sense too. It is now that the Dred Scott 
decision, or rather the Constitution under that decision, does not 
carry slavery into the Territories beyond the power of the peo- 
ple of the Territories to control it as other property. He does 
not say the people can drive it out, but they can control it as 
other property. The language is different ; we should consider 
whether the sense is different. Driving a horse out of this lot 
is too plain a proposition to be mistaken about; it is putting 
him on the other side of the fence. Or it might be a sort of ex- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 201 

elusion of bim from tbe lot if you were to kill him, and let the 
worms devour bim ; but neither of these things is the same as 
" controlling him as other property." That would be to feed 
him, to pamper him, to ride him, to use and abuse him, to make 
the most money out of him " as other property ;" but please you. 
what do the men who are in favor of slavery want more than 
this ? What do they really want, other than that slavery, being 
in the Territories, shall be controlled as other property ? 

If they want anything else, I do not comprehend it. I ask 
your attention to this, first, for the purpose of pointing out the 
change of ground the Judge has made ; arid, in the second 
place, the importance of the change, — that that change is not 
such as to give you gentlemen who want his popular sovereignty 
the power to exclude the institution or drive it out at all. I 
know the Judge sometimes squints at the argument that in con- 
trolling it as other property by unfriendly legislation, they may 
control it to death, — as you might in the case of a horse, per- 
haps, feed him so lightly, and ride him so much, that he would 
die. But when you come to legislative control, there is some- 
thing more to be attended to. I have no doubt, myself, that if the 
Territories should undertake to control slave property as other 
property, — that is, control it in such a way that it would be the 
most valuable as property, and make it bear its just proportion in 
the way of burdens as property — really deal with it as property, 
— the Supreme Court of the United States will say, "God speed 
you, and amen." But I undertake to give the opinion, at least, 
that if the Territories attempt, by any direct legislation, to drive 
the man with his slave out of the Territory, or to decide that 
his slave is free because of his being taken in there, or to tax 
him to such an extent that he cannot keep him there, the Su- 
preme Court will unhesitatingly decide all such legislation 
unconstitutional, as long as that Supreme Court is constructed 
as the Dred Scott Supreme Court is. The first two things they 
have already decided, except that there is a little quibble among 
lawyers between the words dicta and decision. They have 
already decided a negro cannot be made free by territorial legis- 
lation. 



202 THE SPEECHES OP 



UNFRIENDLY LEGISLATION. 

What is that Dred Seott decision ? Judge Douglas labors to 
show that it is one thing, while I think it is altogether different.. 
It is a long opinion, but it is all embodied in this short state- 
ment : "The Constitution of the United States forbids Con- 
gress to deprive a man of his property, without due process of 
law ; the right of property in slaves is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in that Constitution; therefore if Congress shall under- 
take to say that a man's slave is no longer his slave, when he 
crosses a certain line into a Territory, that is depriving him of 
his property without due process of law, and is unconstitutional " 
There is the whole Dred Scott decision. They add that if Con- 
gress cannot do so itself, Congress cannot confer any power to 
do so, and hence any effort by the Territorial legislature to do 
either of these things is absolutely decided against. It is a 
foregone conclusion by that court. 

Now, as to this indirect mode by "unfriendly legislation," 
all lawyers here will readily understand that such a proposition 
cannot be tolerated for a moment, because a legislature cannot 
indirectly do that which it cannot accomplish directly. Then I 
say any legislation to control this property, as property, for 
its benefit as property, would be hailed by this Drcd Scott Su- 
preme Court, and fully sustained ; but any legislation driving 
slave property out, or destroying it as property, directly or indi- 
rectly, will most assuredly, by that court, be held unconstitu- 
tional. 

MR. Lincoln's modesty. 

Judge Douglas soys if the Constitution carries slavery into 
the Territories, beyond the power of the people of the Territo- 
ries to control it as other property, then it follows logically that 
every one who swears to support the Constitution of the United 
States, must give that support to that property which it needs. 
And if the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories, be- 
yond the power of the people to control it as other property, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 203 

then it also carries it into the States, because the Constitution is 
the supreme law of the land. Now, gentlemen, if it were not 
for my excessive modesty, I would say that I told that very 
thing to Judge Duuglas quite a year ago. This argument is 
here in print, and if it were not for my modesty, as I said, I 
might call your attention to it. If you read it, you will find 
that I not only made that argument, but made it better than he 
has made it since. 

There is, however, this difference. I say now, and said then, 
there is no sort of question that the Supreme Court lias decided 
that it is the right of the slaveholder to take his slave and hold 
him in the Territory ; and saying this. Judge Douglas himself 
admits the conclusion. He says if that is so, this consequence 
■will follow ; and because this consequence would follow, his ar- 
gument is, the decision cannot, therefore, be that way, — " that 
■would spoil my popular sovereignty, and it cannot be possible 
that this great principle has been squelched out in this extraor- 
dinary way. It might be, if it were not for the extraordinary 
consequences of spoiling my humbug." 

NEGATIVE DECLARATIONS. 

Another feature of the Judge's argument about the Dred 
Scott case, is an effort to show that that decision deals altogether 
in declarations of negatives ; that the Constitution does not 
affirm anything as expounded by the Dred Scott decision, but it 
only declares a want of power, a total absence of power, in 
reference to the Territories. It seems to be his purpose to 
make the whole of that decision to result in a mere negative 
declaration of a want of power in Congress to do anything in 
relation to this matter in the Territories. I know the opinion 
of the judges states that there is a total absence of power ; but 
that is, unfortunately, not all it states ; for the judges add that 
the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution. It does not stop at saying that 
the right of property in a slave is recognized in the Constitution, 
is declared to exist somewhere in the Constitution, but says it is 



204 THE SPEECHES OP 

affirmed in the Constitution. Its language is equivalent to 
saying that it is erabodied and so woven into that instrument 
that it cannot be detached without breaking the Constitution 
itself. In a word, it is part of the Constitution. 

Douglas is singularly unfortunate in his effort to make out 
that decision to be altogether negative, when the express lan- 
guage at the vital part is that this is distinctly aflSrmed in the 
Constitution. I think myself, and I repeat it here, that this 
decision does not merely carry slavery into the Territories, but, 
by its logical conclusion, it carries it into the States in which we 
live. One provision of that Constitution is, that it shall be the 
supreme law of the land, — I do not quote the language, — any 
constitution or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. 
This Dred Scott decision says that the right of property in a 
slave is affirmed in that Constitution, which is the supreme law 
of the land, any State constitution or law notwithstanding. 
Then I say that to destroy a thing which is distinctly affirmed 
and supported by the supreme law of the land, even by a State 
constitution or law, is a violation of that supreme law, and there 
is no escape from it. In my judgment, there is no avoiding 
that result, save that the American people shall see that consti- 
tutions are better construed than our Constitution is construed 
in that decision. They must take care that it is more faithfully 
and truly carried out than it is there expounded. 

DOUGLAS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE. 

I must hasten to a conclusion. Near the beginning of my 
remarks, I said that this insidious Douglas popular sovereignty 
is the measure that now threatens the purpose of the Republican 
party to prevent slavery from being nationalized in the United 
States. I propose to ask your attention for a little while to 
some propositions in affirmance of that statement. Take it just 
as it stands, and apply it as a principle ; extend and apply tliat 
principle elsewhere, and consider where it will load yoM. I now 
put this proposition, that Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty 
applied will reopen the xVfrican slave-trade ; and I will demon- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 205 

strate it by any variety of ways in which you can turn the sub- 
ject, or look at it. 

Tbe Judge says that tlie people of the Territories have the 
right, by his principle, to have slaves if they want them. Then 
I say that the people in Georgia have the right to buy slaves in 
Africa if they want them, and I defy any man on earth to show 
any distinction between the two things ; to show that the one is 
either more wicked or more unlawful ; to show, on original 
principles, that one is better or worse than the other ; or to 
show, by the Constitution, that one differs a whit from the other. 
He will tell me, doubtless, that there is no constitutional pro- 
vision against people taking slaves into the new Territories, and 
I tell him that there is equally no constitutional provision 
against buying slaves in Africa. He will tell you that a people, 
in the exercise of popular sovereignty, ought to do as they 
please about that thing, and have slaves if they want them ; and 
I tell you that the people of Georgia are as much entitled to 
popular sovereignty, and to buy slaves in Africa if they want 
them, as the people of the Territory are to have slaves if they 
want them. I ask any man, dealing honestly with himself, to 
point out a distinction. 

I have recently seen a letter of Judge Douglas, in which, 
without stating that to be the object, he doubtless endeavors to 
make a distinction between the two. He says he is unalterably 
opposed to the repeal of the laws against the African slave- 
trade. And why '! He then seeks to give a reason that would 
not apply to his popular sovereignty in the Territories. What 
is that reason ? " The abolition of the African slave-trade is a 
compromise of the Constitution ! " I deny it. There is no 
truth in the proposition that the abolition of the African slave- 
trade is a compromise of the Constitution, and there is nothing 
in that instrument which bears out the statement. It is made 
for the purpose of getting up a distinction between the revival 
of the African slave-trade and his " great principle." 

At the time the Constitution of the United States was adojit- 
ed it was expected that the slave-trade would be abolished. I 



206 THE SPEECHES OP 

should assert, and insist upon that, if Judge Douglas denied it. 
But I know that it was equally expected that slavery would be 
excluded from the Territories, and I can show by history, that 
in regard to these two things, public opinion was exactly alike, 
while in regard to positive action, there was more done in the 
Ordinance of '87 to resist the spread of slavery than was ever 
done to abolish the foreign slave-trade. Le.st I be misunder- 
stood, I say again that at the time of the formation of the Con- 
stitution, public expectation was that the slave-trade would be 
abolished, but no more so than the spread of slavery in the 
Territories should be restrained. They stand alike, except that 
in the Ordinance of '87 there was a mark left by public opinion, 
showing that it was more committed against the spread of slavery 
in the Territories than against the foreign slave-trade. 

NO SUCU TUIXG A3 COMPROMISE. 

Compromise ! What word of compromise was there about it. 
Why, the public sense was then in favor of the abolition of tiie 
slave-trade ; but there was at the time a very great commercial 
interest involved in it and extensive capital in that branch of 
trade. There were doubtless the incipient stages of impi-ove- 
ment in the South in the way of farming, dependent on the 
slave-trade, and they made a proposition to Congress to abolish 
the trade after allowing it twenty years, a sufficient time for the 
capital and commerce engaged in it to be transferred to other 
channels. They made no provision that it should be abolished 
in twenty years ; I do not doubt that they expected it would 
be ; but they made no bargain about it. The public sentiment 
left no doubt in the minds of any that it would be done away. 
I repeat, there is nothing in the history of those times in favor 
of that matter being a compromise of the Constitution. It was 
the public expectation at the time, manifested in a thousand 
ways, that the spread of slavery should also be restricted. 

NEGRO OR CROCODILE. 

Then I say, if this principle is established, that there is no 
wrong in slavery, and whoever wants it has a right to have it, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 207 

is a matter of dollars and cents, a sort of question as to Ik.w 
they shall deal with brutes ; that between us and the negio liere 
there is no sort of question, but that at the South the question 
is between the negro and the crocodile. That is all. It is a 
mere matter of policy ; there is a perfect right according to in- 
terest to do just as you please ; when this is done, where this 
doctrine prevails, the miners and sappers will have formed pub- 
lic opinion for the slave-trade. They will be ready for Jeff. 
Davis and Stephens, and other leaders of that company, to 
sound the bugle for the revival of the slave-trade, for the second 
Dred Scott decision, for the flood of slavery to be poured over 
the free States, while we shall be here tied down and helpless 
and run over like sheep. 

It is to be a part and parcel of this same idea, to say to men 
who want to adhere to the Democratic party, who have always 
belonged to that party, and are only looking about for some 
excuse to stick to it, but nevertheless hate slavery, that Doug; 
las's popular sovereignty is as good a way as any to oppose 
slavery. They allow themselves to be persuaded easily, in ac- 
cordance with their previous dispositions, into this belief, that it 
is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can 
do that without straining our old party ties or breaking up old 
political associations. We can do so without being called negro 
worshippers. We can do that without being subjected to the gibes 
and sneers that are so readily thrown out in place of argument 
where no argument can be found. So let us stick to this pop- 
ular sovereignty, — this insidious popular sovereignty. Now 
let me call your attention to one thing that has really happened, 
which shows this gradual and steady debauching of public opin- 
ion, tliis course of preparation for the revival of the slave-trade, 
for the territorial slave code, and the new Dred Scott decision 
that is to carry slavery into the free States. Did you evei-, five 
years ago, hear of anybody in the world saying that the negro 
had no share in the Declaration of National Indepeiulence ; that 
it did not mean negroes at all ; and when " all men " were 
spoken of, negroes were not included ? 



208 THE SPEECHES OF 

I am satisfied that five years ago that proposition was no* put 
upon paper by any living being anywhere. I have been ''n- 
able at any time to find a man in an audience who would de- 
clare that he had ever known of anybody saying so five years 
ago. But last year there was not a Douglas popular sovereign 
in Illinois who did not say it. Is there one in Ohio but de- 
clares his firm belief that the Declaration of Independence did 
not mean negroes at all ? I do not know how this is ; I have 
not been here much ; but I presume you are very much alike 
everywhere. Then I suppose that all now express the belief 
that the Declaration of Independence never did mean negroes. 
I call upon one of them to say that he said it five years ago. 

If you think that now, and did not think it then, the next 
thing that strikes me is to remark that there has been a change 
wrought in you, and a very significant change it is, being no less 
than changing the negro, in your estimation, from the rank of a 
man to that of a brute. Tliey are taking him down, and placing 
him, when spoken of, among reptiles and crocodiles, as Judge 
Douglas himself expresses it. 

Is not this change wrought in your minds a very important 
change? Public opinion in this country is everything. In 
a nation like ours this popular sovereignty and squatter sover- 
eignty have already wrought a change in the public mind to the 
extent I have stated. There is no man in this crowd who can 
contradict it. 

WHAT ALL TUIS IS TENDING TO. 

Now, if you are opposed to slavery honestly, as much as any- 
body, I ask you to note that fact, and the like of which is to 
follow, to be plastered on, layer after layer, until very soon you 
are prepared to deal with the negro everywhere as with the 
brute. If public sentiment has not been debauched already to 
tliis point, a new turn of the screw in that direction is all that is 
wanting ; and this is constantly being done by the teachers of 
this insidious popular sovereignty. You need but one or two 
turns further until your minds, now ripening under these teach- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 209 

ings, will be ready for all these things, and you will receive and 
support, or submit to, the slave-trade, revived with all its hor- 
rors, a slave code crforced in our Territories, and a new Dred 
Scott decision to bring slavery up into the very heart of the free 
North. This, X must say, is but carrying out those words pro- 
phetically spoken by Mr. Clay, many, many years ago, — I be- 
lieve more than thirty years, — which he told an audience that if 
they would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate eman- 
cipation, they must go back to the era of our independence and 
muzzle the cannon which thundered its annual joyous return on 
the Fourth of July; they must blow out the moral lights 
around us ; they must penetrate the human soul and eradicate 
the love of liberty ; but until they did these things, and others 
eloquently enumerated by him, they could not repress all ten- 
dencies to ultimate emancipation. 

I ask attention to the fact that in a prg-eminent degree these 
popular sovereigns are at this work ; blowing out the moral 
lights around us ; teaching that the negro is no longer a man, but 
a brute ; that the Declaration has nothing to do with him ; that 
he ranks with the crocodile and the reptile ; that man, with body 
and soul, is a matter of dollars and cents. I suggest to this 
portion of the Ohio Republicans, or Democrats, if there be any 
present, the serious consideration of this fact, that there is now 
going on among you a steady process of debauching public 
opinion on this subject. With this, my friends, I bid you adieu. 
14 



210 THE SPEECHES OF 



OHIO AND KENTUCKY, OR THE TWO SYSTEMS. 

Mr. Lincoln spoke in Cincinnati, for the first time, Septem- 
ber, 1859, during the same canvass. 

JUDGE Douglas's charge. 

3Iy fellow-citizens of the State of Ohio : This is the first 
time in my life that I have appeared before an audience in 
so great a city as this^ I therefore, though I am no longer a 
young man, make this appearance under some degree of em- 
barrassment. But I have found that when one is embarrassed, 
usually the shortest way to get through with it is to quit talking 
or thinking about it, and go at something else. 

I understand that you have had recently with you my very 
distinguished friend. Judge Douglas, of Illinois ; and I under- 
stand, without having had an opportunity (not greatly sought, 
to be sure) of seeing a report of the speech that he made here, 
that he did me the honor to mention my humble name. I sup- 
pose that he did so for the purpose of making some objection to 
some sentiment at some time expressed by me. I should ex- 
pect, it is true, that Judge Douglas had reminded you, or 
informed you, if you had never before heard it, that I had once 
in my life declared it as my opinion, that this Government can- 
not " endure permanently, half slave and half free; that 'a house 
divided against itself cannot stand,'" and, as I had expressed it, 
I did not expect tlie house to fall ; that I did not expect the 
Union to be dissolved, — but that I did expect it would cease to 
bo divided ; that it would become all one thing or all the other ; 
that either the opposition of slavery would arrest the further 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 211 

spread of it, anrl place it wbere tbe pul)lic mind would rest in 
the belief tbat it was in tbe course of ultimate extinction ; or the 
friends of slavery will push it forward until it becomes alike law- 
ful in all the States, old or new, free as well as slave. I did, 
fifteen months ago, express that opinion ; and upon many occa- 
sions Judge Douglas has denounced it ; and has greatly, inten- 
tionally or unintentionally, misrepresented my purpose in the 
expression of that opinion. 

I presume, without having seen a report of his speech, that 
he did so here. I presume that he alluded also to tbat opinion 
in different language, — having been expressed at a subsequent 
time by Governor Seward of New York, — and tbat he took tbe 
two in a lump and denounced them ; that he tried to point out 
tbat there was something couched in this opinion which led to 
the making of an entire uniformity of the local institutions of 
the various States of the Union, in utter disregard of the differ- 
ent States, which in their nature would seem to require a variety 
of institutions and a variety of laws, conforming to the differ- 
ences in the nature of the different States. 

iVot only so, — I presume he insisted that this was a declaration 
of war between tbe free and slave States, — tbat it was the 
sounding to the onset of continual war between the different 
States, — the slave and free States. 

A SAFE DISTANCE. 

This charge, in this form, was made by Judge Douglas, 0*1, 
I believe, tbe 9tb of July, 1858, in Chicago, in my bearing. 
On the next evening, I made some reply to it. I informed him 
that many of the inferences he drew from that expression of 
mine were altogether foreign to any purpose entertained by me, 
and in so far as he should ascribe these inferences to me, as my 
purpose, he was entirely mistaken ; and in so far as he might 
argue that whatever might be my purpose, actions, conforming 
to my views, would lead to these results, be might argue and 
establish if he could ; but, so far as purposes were concerned, 
he was totally mistaken as to me. 



212 THE SPEECHES OP 

When I made that reply to him, — when T told him, on the 
question of declaring war between the different States of the 
Union, that I had not said that I did not expect any peace upon 
this question until slavery was exterminated ; that I had only 
said I expected peace when that institution was put where the 
public mind should rest in the belief that it was in course of 
ultimate extinction ; that I believed from the organization of our 
government, until a very recent , period of time, the institution 
had been placed and continued upon such a basis ; that we had 
had couijiarative peace upon that question through a portion of 
that period of time, only because the public mind rested in that 
belief in regard to it, and that when we returned to that posi- 
tion in relation to that matter, I supposed we should again have 
peace as we previously had. I assured him, as I now assure 
you, that I neither then had, nor have, or ever had, any pur- 
pose in any way of interfering with the institution of slavery, 
where it exists. I believe we have no power, under the Con- 
stitution of the United States, or rather under the form of 
Government under which we live, to interfere with the institu- 
tion of slavery, or any other of the institutions of our sister 
States, be they free or slave States. I declared then, and I now 
re-declare, that I have as little inclination to interfere with the 
institution of slavery where it now exists, through the instru- 
mentality of the Oeneral Government, or any other instrumen- 
tality, as I believe we have no power to do so. I accidentally 
used this expression : I had no purpose of entering into the 
slave States to disturb the institution of slavery ! So, upon 
the first occasion that Judge Douglas got an opportunity to re- 
ply to me, he passed by the whole body of what I had said upon 
that subject, and seized upon the particular expression of mine, 
that I had no purpose of entering into the slave States to dis- 
turb the institution of slavery. " Oh, no," said he, " he (Lin- 
coln) won't enter into the slave States to disturb the institution 
of slavery ; he is too prudent a man to do such a thing as that ; 
he only means that he will go on to the line between the free 
and slave States, and shoot over at them. This is all he means 



ABRAHAM LIXCOLN. 213 

to do. He means to do them all the harm he can, to disturb 
thefn-all he can, in such a way as to keep his own hide in jjcr- 
fect safety." 

Well, now, I did not think, at that time, that that was either 
a very dignified or very logical argument; but so it was, I had 
to get along with it as well as I could. 

SnOOTING OVER THE LINE. 

It has occurred to me here to-night, that if I ever do shoot 
over the line at the people on the other side of the line into a 
slave State, and purpose to do so, keeping my skin safe, that I 
have now about the best chance I shall ever have. I should 
not wonder that there are some Kentuckians about this audi- 
ence ; we are close to Kentucky ; and whether that be so or 
not, we are on elevated ground, and by speaking distinctly, I 
should not wonder if some of the Kentuckians would hear me 
on the other side of the river. For that reason I propose to 
address a portion of what I have to say to the Kentuckians. 

A PLEA FOR THE " LITTLE GIANT." 

I say, then, in the first place, to the Kentuckians, that I am 
what they call, as I understand it, a " Black Republican." I 
think slavery is wrong, morally and politically. I desire that it 
should be no further spread in these United States, and I 
should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole 
Union. While I say this for myself, I say to you, Kentuckians, 
that I understand you differ radically with me upon this propo- 
sition ; that you believe slavery is a good thing ; that slavery is 
right ; that it ought to be extended and perpetuated in this 
Union. Now, there being this broad difference between us, I 
do not pretend, in addressing myself to you, Kentuckians, to 
attempt proselyting you ; that would be a vain effort. I do not 
enter upon it. I only propose to try to show you that you 
ought to nominate for the next Presidency, at Charleston, my 
distinguished friend, Judge Douglas. In all that there is a 



214 THE SPEECHES OF 

diffLToncc between you and him, I understand he is sincerely for 
yoii, and more wisely for you, than you are for younselves. I 
will try to demonstrate that proposition. Understand, now, I 
say that I believe he is as sincerely for you, and more wisely 
for you, than you are for yourselves. 

WUAT DO YOU WANT ? 

"What do you want more than anything else to make success- 
ful your views of slavery ; to advance the outspread of it, and 
to secure and perpetuate the nationality of it ? What do you 
want more than anything else ? What is needed absolutely V 
What is indispensable to you ? Why ! if I may be allowed to 
answer the question, it is to retain a hold upon the North ; it is 
to retain support and strength from the free States. If you can 
get this support and strength from the free States, you can 
succeed. If you do not get this support and this strength from 
the free States, you are in the minority, and you are beaten at 
once. 

If that proposition be admitted, — and it is undeniable, — 
then the next thing I say to you is, that Douglas, of all the 
men in this nation, is the only man that affords you any hold 
upon the free States; that no other man can give you any 
strength in the free States. This being so, if you doubt the 
other branch of the proposition, whether he is for you, whether 
he is really for you, as I have expressed it, I propose asking 
your attention for a while to a few facts. 

TUE DIFrERENCE. 

The issue between you and mc, understand, is, that I tliink 
slavery is wrong, and ought not to be outspread, and you think 
it is right, and ought to be extended and perpetuated. [A 
voice, " O Lord ! "] That is my Kentuckian I am talking to 
now. 

I now proceed to try to show you that Douglas is as sincerely 
for you, and more wisely for you, than you are for yourselves. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 215 



MOULDING PUBLIC OPINION. 

In the first place, we know that in a Government like this, — 
in a Government of the people, where the voice of all the mea 
of that country, substantially, enters into the execution or ad- 
ministration, rather of the Government, — in such a Govern- 
ment, what lies at the bottom of all of it, is public opinion. I 
lay down the proposition, that Judge Douglas is not only the 
man that promises you, in advance, a hold upon the North, and 
support in the North, but that he constantly moulds public 
opinion to your ends ; that in every possible way he can, he 
constantly moulds the public opinion of the North to your ends; 
and if there are a few things in which he seems to be against 
you, — a few things which he says that appear to be against 
you, and a few that he forbears to say, which you would like to 
have him say, — you ought to remember that the saying of the 
one, or the forbearing to say the other, would lose his hold upon 
the North, and, by consequence, would lose his capacity to serve 
you. 

Upon this subject of moulding public opinion, I call your at- 
tention to the fact, — for a well-established ftict it is, — that the 
Judge never says your institution of slavery is wrong; he never 
says it is right, to be sure ; but he never says it is wrong. 
There is not a public man in the United States, I believe, with 
the exception of Senator Douglas, who has not, at some time ia 
his life, declared his opinion whether the thing is right or wrong ; 
but Senator Douglas never declares it is wrong. He leaves 
himself at perfect liberty to do all in your favor, which he would 
be hindered from doing if he were to declare the thing to be 
wrong. On the contrary, he takes all the chances that he has 
for inveigling the sentiment of the North, opposed to slavery, 
into your support, by never saying it is right. This you ought 
to set down to his credit. You ought to give him full credit 
for this much, little though it be, in comparison to the whole 
which he does for you. 



216 THE SPEECHES OP 



DOUGLAS S SEESAW. 



Some other things I ■will ask your attention to. He said 
upon the floor of the United States Senate, and he has repeated 
it, as I understand, a great many times, that he does not care 
whether slavery is "voted up or voted down." This again 
shows you, or ought to show you, if you would reason upon it, 
that he does not believe it to be wrong, — for a man may say, 
when he sees nothing wrong in a thing, that he does not care 
whether it be voted up or voted down ; but no man can logically 
say that he cares not whether a thing goes up or goes down, 
which to him appears to be wrong. You therefore have a dem- 
onstration in this, that, to Judge Douglas's mind, your favorite 
institution, which you would have spread out and made per- 
petual, is no wrong. 

THE ISOTHERMAL LINE, WHERE IS IT ? 

Another thing he tells you, in a speech made at Memphis, in 
Tennessee, shortly after the canvass in Illinois, last year. He 
there distinctly told the people, that there was a " line drawn 
by the Almighty across this continent, on the one side of which 
the soil must always be cultivated by slaves;" that he did not 
pretend to know exactly where that line was, but that there was 
such a line. I want to ask your attention to that proposition 
again, — that there is one portion of this continent where the 
Almighty has designed the soil shall always be cultivated by 
slaves ; that its being cultivated by slaves at that place is right ; 
that it has the direct sympathy and authority of the Almighty. 
Whenever you can get these Northern audiences to adopt the opin- 
ion that slavery is right on the other siJe of the Ohio, — whenever 
you can get them, in pursuance of Douglas's views, to adopt that 
sentiment, — they will very readily make the other argument, 
which is perfectly logical, that that which is right on that side of 
the Ohio, cannot be wrong on this ; and that if you have that 
property on that side of the Ohio, under the seal and stamp of 
the Almighty, when by any means it escapes over here, it is 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 217 

wrong to have constitutions and laws " to devil" you about It. 
So Douglas s moulding the public opinion of the North, first to 
say that the thing i^ right in your State over the Ohio River, and 
hence to say that that which is right there is not wrong here, 
and that all laws and constitutions here, recognizing it as being 
wrono-, are themselves wrong, and ought to be repealed and ab- 
rogated. He will tell you, men of Ohio, that if you choose 
here to have laws against slavery, it is in conformity to the idea 
that your climate is not suited to it, — that your climate is not 
suited to slave labor, — and therefore you have constitutions 
and laws against it. 

TUE SOGAR-CANE ARGUMENT. 

Let US attend to that argument for a little while and see if it 
be sound. You do not raise sugar-cane (except the new-fash- 
ioned sugar-cane, and you won't raise that long), but they do 
raise it in Louisiana. You don't raise it in Ohio, because you 
can't raise it profitably, because the climate don't suit. They 
do raise it in Louisiana because there it is profitable. Now, 
Douglas will tell you that is precisely the slavery question. 
That they do have slaves there because they are profitable, and 
you don't have them here because they are not profitable. If 
that is so, then it leads to dealing with the one precisely as with the 
other. Is there then anything in the constitution or laws of Ohio 
against raising sugar-cane ? Have you found it necessary to put 
any such provision in your law ? Surely not ! No man desires 
to raise sugar-cane in Ohio ; but, if any man did desire to do so, 
you would say it was a tyrannical law that forbids his doing so ; 
and whenever you shall agree with Douglas, whenever your 
minds are brought to adopt his argument, as surely you will have 
reached the conclusion, that although slavery is not profitable 
in Ohio, if any man wants it, it is wrong to him not to let him 
have it. 

In this matter Judge Douglas is preparing the public mind 
for you of Kentucky, to make perpetual that good thing in your 
estimation, about which you and I difler. 



218 THE SPEECHES OF 



THE NEGRO A BRUTE A DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE. 

In this connection let me ask your attention to another thing. 
I believe it is safe to assert that five years ago, no living man 
had expressed the opinion that the negro had no share in the 
Declaration of Independence. Let me state that again : five 
years ago no living man had expressed the opinion that the 
negro had no share in the Declaration of Independence. If 
there is in this large audience any man who ever knew of that 
opinion being put upon paper as much as five years ago, I will 
be obliged to him now or at a subsequent time to show it. 

If that be true, I wish you then to note the next fact ; that 
within the space of five years Senator Douglas, in the argument 
of this question, has got his entire party, so far as I know, with- 
out exception, to join in saying that the negro has no share in 
the Declaration of Independence. If there be now in all those 
United States one Douglas man that does not say this, I have 
been unable upon any occasion to scare him up. Now if none 
of you said this five years ago, and all of you say it now, that is 
a matter that you Kentuckians ought to note. That is a vast 
change in the Northern public sentiment upon that question. 

Of what tendency is that change ? The tendency of that 
change is to bring the public mind to the conclusion that when 
men are spoken of, the negro is not meant ; that when negroes 
are spoken of, brutes alone are contemplated. That change in 
public sentinient has already degraded the black man in the esti- 
mation of Douglas and his followers from the condition of a man 
of some sort, and assigned him to the condition of a brute. 
Now, you Kentuckians ought to give Douglas credit for this. 
That is the largest possible stride that can be made in regard to 
the perpetuation of your thing of slavery. 

A voice — " Speak to Ohio men, and not to Kentuckians." 

Mr. Lincoln — I beg permission to speak as I please . 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 219 



THE BIBLE ARGUMENT AND DOUGLAS. 

In Kentucky perhaps, in many of the slave States certainly, 
you are trying to establish the rightfulness of slavery by refer- 
ence to the Bible. You are trying to show that slavery existed 
in the Bible times by divine ordinance. Now, Douglas is wiser 
than you, for your own benefit, upon that subject. Douf^las 
knows that whenever you establish that slavery was right by the 
Bible, it will occur that that slavery was the slavery of the 
white man, — of men without reference lo color, — and ho 
knows very well that you may entertain that idea in Kentucky 
as much as you please, but you will never win any Northern 
support upon it. He makes a wiser argument for you ; he 
makes the argument that the slavery of the Mack man, the 
slavery of the man who has a skin of a different color from 
your own, is right. He thereby brings to your supjjort Northern 
voters who could not for a moment be brought by your own 
argument of the Bible-right of slavery. Will you not give him 
credit for that ? Will you not say that in this matter he is more 
wisely for you than you are for yourselves ? 

THE CROCODILE I'LEA. 

Now, having established with his entire party this doctrine, — 
having been entirely successful in that branch of his efforts in 
your behalf, he is ready for another. 

At this same meeting at Memphis, he declared that, while in 
all contests between the negro and the white man, he was for 
the white man, but that in all questions between the negio and 
the crocodile, he was for the negro. He did not make that 
declaration accidentally at Memphis. He made it a great many 
times in the canvass in Illinois last year (though I don't know 
that it was reported in any of his speeches there), but he fre- 
quently made it. I believe he repeated it at Columbus, and I 
should not wonder if he repeated it here. It is, then, a delib- 
erate way of expressing himself upon that subject. It is a 
matter of mature deliberation with him thus to express himself 



220 THE SPEECHES OP 

upon that point of his case. It therefore requires some deliber- 
ate attention. 

The first inference seems to be that if you do not enslave the 
negro, you are wronging the white man in some way or other ; and 
that whoever is opposed to the negro being enslaved, is, in some 
way or other, against the white man. Is not that a falsehood ? 
If there was a necessary conflict between the white man and the 
negro, I should be for the white man as much as Judge Douglas ; 
but I say there is no such necessary conflict. I say that there 
is room enough for us all to be free, and that it not only does 
not wrong the white man that the negro should be free, but it 
positively wrongs the mass of the white men that the negro 
should be enslaved ; that the mass of white men are really in- 
jured by the effects of slave labor in the vicinity of the fields 
of their own labor. 

But I do not desire to dwell upon this branch of the question 
more than to say that this assumption of his is false, and I do 
hope that that fallacy will not long prevail in the miuds of in- 
telligent white men. At all events, you ought to thank Judge 
Douglas for it. It is for your benefit it is made. 

The other branch of it is, that in a struggle between the negro 
and the crocodile, he is for the negro. Well, I don't know 
that there is any struggle between the negro and the crocodile, 
either. I suppose that if a crocodile (or as we old river 
boatmen used to call them, alligators) should come across a 
white man, he' would kill him if he could, and so he would a 
negro. But what, at last, is this proposition 'I I believe that 
it is a sort of a proposition in proportion, which may be stated 
thus : " As the negro is to the white man, so is the crocodile to 
the! negro ; and as the negro may rightfully treat the crocodile 

a beast or a reptile, so the white man may rightfully treat the 
negro as a beast or a reptile. That is really the " kiiip " of 
all that argument of his. 

Now, my brother Kentuckians, who believe in this, you ought 
to thank Judge Douglas for having put that in a much more 
taking way than any of yourselves have done. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN-. V' 221 



WHERE IS THE DISTINCTIOS ? 

Again, 'Do\ig\as^s great principle, "popular sovereignty, " as 
be calls it, gives you, by natural consequence, the revival of the 
slave-trade whenever you want it. If you question this, listen 
awhile, consider awhile, what I shall advance in support of that 
proposition. 

He says that it is the sacred right of the man who goes into 
the territories, to have slavery if he wants it. Grant that, for 
argument's sake. Is it not the sacred right of the man who 
don't go there equally to buy slaves in Africa, if ho wants them? 
Can you point out the difference ? The man who goes into the 
territories of Kansas and Nebraska, or any other new terri- 
tory, with the sacred right of taking a slave there which belongs 
to him, would certainly have no more right to take one there 
than I would, who own no slave, but who would desire to buy 
one and take him there. You will not say, — you, the friends 
of Judge Douglas, — but that the man who does not own a slave, 
has an equal right to buy one and take him to the Territory, as 
the other does ? 

A voice — "I want to ask a question. Don't foreign nations 
interfere with the slave-trade ? " 

Mr. Lincoln — Well! I understand it to be a principle of 
Democracy to whip foreign nations whenever they interfere with 
us. 

Voice — "I only asked for information. I am a Republican 
myself." 

Mr. Lincoln — You and I will be on the best terms in the 
world, but I do not wish to be diverted from the point I was 
trying to press. 

THE LOGIC OF IT. 

I say that Douglas's popular sovereignty, establishing his 
sacred right in the people, if you please, if carried to its logical 
conclusion, gives equally the sacred right to the people of the 
States or the Territories themselves to buy slaves, wherever they 



222 THE SPEECHES OF 

can buy them cheapen ; and if any man can show a distinction, 
I should like to hear him try it. If any man can show how the 
people of Kansas have a better right to slaves because they 
want them, than the people of Georgia have to buy them in 
Africa, I wanJ him to do it. I think it cannot-be done. If it 
is " popular sovereignty " for the jieople to have slaves because 
they want them, it is popular sovereignty for them to buy them 
in Africa, because they desire to do so. 

KEPEAL OF TUE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE LAWS. 

I know that Douglas has recently made a little effort, — not 
seeming to notice that he had a different theory, — has made an 
effort to get rid of that. He has written a letter, addressed to 
somebody, I believe, who resides in Iowa, declaring his opposi- 
tion to the repeal of the laws that prohibit the African slave- 
trade. He bases his opposition to such repeal upon the ground 
that these laws are themselves one of the compromises of the 
Constitution of the United States. Now it would be very inter- 
esting to see .Judge Douglas or any of his friends turn to the 
Constitution of the United States and point out that compro- 
mise, to show where there is any compromise in the Constitution, 
or provision in the Constitution, express or implied, by which the 
administrators of that Constitution are under any obligation to re- 
peal the African slave-trade. I know, or at least I think I know, 
that the framers of that Constitution did expect that the Afri- 
can slare-trade would be abolished at the end of twenty years, 
to which time their prohibition against its being abolished ex- 
tended. I think there is abundant contemporaneous history to 
show that the framers of the Constitution expected it to be abol- 
ished. But while they so expected, they gave nothing for that 
expectation, and they put no provision in the Constitution re- 
quiring it should be so abolished. The migration or importa- 
tion of such persons as the States shall see fit to admit shall not 
be prohibited, but a certain tax might be levied upon such im- 
portation. But what was to be done after that time ? The Con- 
titution is as silent about that as it is silent, personally, about 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 223 

myself. There is absolutely notliing in it about that subject, — 
there is only the expectation of the fraraers of the Constitution 
that the slave-trade would be abolished at the end of that time, 
and they expected it would be abolished, owing to public senli- 
raent, before that time, and they put that provision in, in order 
that it should not be abolished, before that time, for reasous which 
I suppose they thought* to be sound ones, but which I will not 
now try to enumerate before you. 

WHAT THE FRAMERS OP THE CONSTITUTION EXPECTED. 

But while they expected the slave-tr.ade would be abolished 
at that time, they expected that the spread of slavery into the 
new tcn-itories should also be restricted. It is as easy to prove 
that the framers of the Constitution of the United States ex- 
pected that slavery should be prohibited from extending into 
the new territories, as it is to prove that it was expected that 
the slave-trade should be abolished. Both these things were 
expected. One was no moro expected than the other, and one 
was no more a comproraisa of the Constitution than the other. 
There was nothing said in the Constitution in regard to the 
spread of slavery into the territory. I grant that ; but there 
was something very important said about it by the same genera- 
tion of men in the adoption of the old Ordinance of '87, through 
the influence of which you here in Ohio, our neighbors in In- 
diana, we ia Illinois, our neighbors in Michigan and Wisconsin 
are happy, prosperous, teeming millions of free men. That 
generation of men, though not to the full extent members of the 
Ciuveution that framed the Constitution, were to some extent 
incmbers of that Convention, holding seats at the same time in 
one body and the other, so that if there was any compromise on 
either of these subjects, the strong evidence is that that compro- 
mise was in favor of the restriction of slavery from the new 
territories. 



224 THE SPEECHES OP 



A SHREWD GAME. 

But Douglas says that he is unalterably opposed to the repeal 
o? those laws ; because, in his view, it is a compromise of the 
Constitution. You Kentuckians, no doubt, are somewhat of- 
fended 'vith that ! You ought not to be ! You ought to be 
patient ! You ought to know that if he said less than that, he 
would lose the power of "lugging" the Northern States to 
your support. Eeally, what you would push him to do would 
take from him his entire power to serve you. And you ought 
to remember how lono-, by precedent, Judge Douglas holds him- 
self obliged to stick by compromises. You ought to remember 
that by the time you youi selves think you are ready to inaugu- 
rate measures for the revival of the African slave-trade, that 
sufficient time will have arrived, by precedent, for Judge Doug- 
las to break through that compromise. He says now nothing 
more strong than he said in 1849, when he declared in favor of 
the Missouri Compromise, — that precisely four years and a 
quarter after he declared that compromise to be a sacred thing, 
which "no ruthless hand would ever dare to touch," he, him- 
self, brought forward the measure, ruthiatsly to destroy it. By 
a mere calculation of time, it will only be +our years more until 
he is ready to take back his profession aboui the sacredness of 
of the compromise abolishing the slave-trade. Precisely as soon 
as you are ready to have his services in that direcLion, by fair 
calculation, you may be sure of having them. 

TUE " UNFRIENDLY LEGISLATION " DODGE. 

But you remember and set down to Judge Douglas's debt, or 
discredit, that he, last year, said the people of Territories can, 
in spite of the Dred Scott decision, exclude your slaves from 
those territories ; that he declared by " unfriendly legislation," 
the extension of your property into the new territories may be 
cut off in the teeth of the decision of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. 

He assumed that position at Freeport on the 27tb of August, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 225 

1858. He said that the people of the territories can exclude 
slavery, in so many words. You ought, however, to bear in 
mind that he has never said it since. You may hunt in every 
speech that he has since made, and he has never used that ex- 
pression once. He has never seemed to notice that he is stating 
his views differently from what he did then ; but, by some sort 
of accident, he has always really stated it differently. He has 
always since then declared that " the Constitution does not carry 
slavery into the Territories of the United States beyond the 
power of the people legally to control it, as other property." 
Now, there is a difference in the language used upon that former 
occasion and in this latter day. There may or may not be a 
difference in the meaning, but it is worth while considering 
whether there is not also a difference in meaning. 

HOW THE SUPREME COURT WOULD REGARD IT. 

What is it to exclude ? Why, it is to drive it out. It is 
in some way to put it out of the territory. It is to force it 
across the line, or change its character, so that as property it is 
out of existence. But what is the controlling of it "as other 
property? " Is controlling it as other property the same thing 
as destroying it, or driving it away ? I should think not. I 
should think the controlling of it as other property would be 
just about what you in Kentucky should want. I understand 
the controlling of property means the controlling of it for the 
benefit of the owner of it. While I have no doubt the Supreme 
Court of the United States would say " God speed " to any of 
the territorial legislatures that should thus control slave prop- 
erty, they would sing quite a different tune, if by the pretence 
of controlling it they were to undertake to pass laws which vir- 
tually excluded it, and that upon a very well known principle 
to all lawyers, that what a legislature cannot directly do, it can- 
not do by indirection ; that as the legislature has not the power 
to drive slaves out, they have no power by indirection, by tax, 
or by imposing burdens in any way upon that property, to effect 
15 



226 THE SPEECHES OP 

the same end, and that any attempt to do so would be held 
by the Dred Scott court unconstitutional. 

THE ABSDKDITY. 

Douglas is not willing to stand by bis first proposition, that 
they can exclude it, because we have seen that that proposition 
amounts to nothing more nor less than the naked absurdity, that 
you may lawfully drive out that which has a lawful right to re- 
main. Pie admitted at first that the slave might bo lawfully 
taken into the territories under the Constitution of the United 
States, and yet asserted that he might be lawfully driven out. 
That being the proposition, it is the absurdity I have stated. 
He is not willing to stand in the face of that direct, naked, and 
impudent absurdity ; he has, therefore, modified his language 
into that of being '' controlled as other property.'''' 

The Kentuckians don't like this in Douglas ! I will tell you 
where it will go. He now swears by the court. He was once 
a leading man in Illinois to break down a court, because it had 
made a decision he did not like. But he now not only swears 
by the court, the courts having got to working for you, but he 
denounces all men that do not swear by the courts, as un- 
patriotic, as bad citizens. When one of these acts of unfriendly 
legislation shall impose such heavy burdens as to, in effect, de- 
stroy property in slaves in a territory and show plainly enough 
that there can be no mistake in the purpose of the legislature 
to make them so burdensome, this same Supreme Court will 
decide that law to be unconstitutional, and he will be ready to 
say for your benefit, " I swear by the court; I give it up ; " 
and while that is going ovt he has been getting all his men 
to swear by the courts, and to give it up with him. In this 
again he serves you faithfully, and as I say, more wisely than 
you serve yourselves. 

ADTIIOUSinP OF " THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT " DOCTRINTi;. 

Again ; I have alluded iu the beginning of these remarks to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 227 

the fact, that Judge Douglas has made great complaint of my 
having expressed the opinion that this Government " cannot 
endure permanently half slave and half free." He has com- 
plained of Seward for using different language, and declaring 
that there is an " irrepressible conflict " between the principles 
of free and slave labor. [A voice — "He says it is not 
original with Seward. That is original with Lincoln."] I 
will attend to that immediately, sir. Since that time, Hickman, 
of Pennsylvania, expressed the same sentiment. He has never 
denounced Mr. Hickman : why ? There is a little chance, not- 
withstanding that opinion in the mouth of Hickman, that he may 
yet be a Douglas man. That is the difference ! It is not 
unpatriotic to hold that opinion, if a man is a Douglas man. 

But neither I, nor Seward, nor Hickman, is entitled to the 
enviable or unenviable distinction of having first expressed that 
idea. That same idea was expressed by the llichmond Enquirer 
in Virginia, in 1S5G ; quite two years before it was expressed 
by the first of us. And while Douglas was pluming himself, 
that in his conflict with my humble self, last year, he had 
" squelched out " that fatal heresy, as he delighted to call it, 
and suggested that if he only had had a chance to be in New 
York and meet Seward he would have " squelched " it there 
also, it never occurred to him to breathe a word against Pryor. 
I don't think that you can discover that Douglas ever talked of 
going to Virginia to " squelch " out that idea there. No. 
More than that. That same Roger A. Pryor was brought to 
Washington City and made the editor of the par excellence 
Douglas paper, after making use of that expression, which, in 
us, is so unpatriotic and heretical. From all this, my Kentucky 
friends may see that this opinion is heretical in his view only 
when it is expressed by men suspected of a desire that the 
country shall all become free, and not when expressed by those 
fairly known to entertain the desire that the whole country shall 
become slave. When expressed by that class of men, it is ia 
nowise offensive to him. In this again, my friends of Kentucky, 
you have Judge Douglas with you. 



228 THE SPEECHES OP 



WHO WORKED FOR DOUGLAS 3 ELECTION. 

There is another reason why you Southern people ought to 
nominate Douglas at your Convention at Charleston. That 
reason is the wonderful capacity of the man ; the power he has 
of doing what would seem to bo impossible. Let me call your 
attention to one of these apparently impossible things. 

Douglas had three or four very distinguished men of the most 
extreme anti-slavery views of any men in the llepubliean party, 
expressing their desire for his re-election to the Senate last year. 
That would, of itself, have seemed to be a little wonderful, but 
that wonder is heightened when we see that Wise of Virginia, a 
man exactly opposed to them, a man who believes in the Divine 
right of slavery, was also expressing his desire that Douglas 
should be re-elected ; that another man, that may be said to be 
kindred to Wise, Mr. Breckinridge, the Vice-President, and of 
your own State, was also agreeing with the anti-slavery men in 
the North, that Douglas ought to be re-elected. Still, to 
heighten the wonder, a Senator from Kentucky, whom I have 
always loved with an affection as tender and endearing as I have 
ever loved any man ; who was opposed to the anti-slavery men 
for reasons which seemed suflBcient to him, and equally opposed 
to Wise and Breckinridge, was writing letters into Illinois to 
secure the re-election of Douglas. Now that all these conflict- 
ing elements should be brought, while at daggers' points, with 
one another, to support him, is a feat that is worthy for you to 
note and consider. It is quite probable that each of these 
classes of men thought, by the re-election of Douglas, their 
peculiar views would gain something ; it is probable that the 
anti-slavery men thought their views would gain something ; 
that Wise and Breckinridge thought so too, as regards their 
opinions ; that Mr. Crittenden thought that his views would 
gain something, although he was opposed to both these other 
men. It is probable that each and all of them thought that 
they w^re using Douglas, and it is yet an unsolved problem 
whether he was not using them all. If he was, then it is for 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 229 

you to consider whetber that power to perform -wonders, is one 
for you ligbtly to throw away. 

NO CHARGE FOR THE OPINION. 

There is one other thing that I will say to you in this rela- 
tion. It is but my opinion, I give it to you without a fee. It 
is my opinion that it is for you to take him or be defeated ; and 
that if you do take him you may be beaten. You will surely 
be beaten if you do not take him. We, the Republicans and 
others forming the opposition of the country, intend to " stand 
by our guns, " to be patient and firm, and in the long run to 
beat you whether you take him or not. We know that before 
we fairly beat you we have to beat you both together. We 
know that you are " all of a feather," and that we have to beat 
you altogether, and we expect to do it. We don't intend to be 
very impatient about it. We mean to be as deliberate and calm 
about it as it is possible to be, but as firm and resolved as it 
is possible for men to be. When we do as we say, beat you, 
you perhaps want to know what we will do with you. 

WHAT WE BIEAN TO DO. 

I will tell you, so far as I am authorized to speak for the 
opposition, what we mean to do with you. We mean to treat 
you, as near as we possibly can, as Washington, JeflTerson, and 
Madison treated you. We mean to leave you alone, and in no 
way to interfere with your institution ; to abide by all and every 
compromise of the Constitution, and, in a word, coming back to 
the original proposition, to treat you, so far as degenerated men 
(if we have degenerated) may, according to the examples of 
those noble fathers, — Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. 
We mean to remember that you are as good as we ; that there 
is no difference between us other than the difference of circum- 
stances. We mean to recognize and bear in mind always that 
you have as good hearts in your bosoms as other people, or as 
we claim to have, and treat you accordingly. We mean to 
marry your girls when we have a chance, — the white ones, I 



230 THE SPEECHES OP 

mcnn, — and I have the honor to inform you that I once did . 
have a chance in that way. 

WUAT WILL THE SOUTH DO ? 

I have told you what we mean to do. I want to know, now, 
when that thing takes place, what do you mean to do ? I often 
hear it intimated that you mean to divide the Union whenever 
a Republican, or anything like it, is elected President of the 
United States. [A voice, " That is so."] " That is so," one 
of them says ; I wonder if he is a Kentuckian ? [A voice, 
" He is a Douglas man."] Well, then, I want to know what 
you are going to do with your half of it. Are you going to 
split the Ohio down through, and push your half off a piece? 
Or are you going to keep it right alongside of us outrageous 
fellows ? Or are you going to build up a wall some way be- 
tween your country and ours, by which that movable property 
of yours can't come over here any more, to the danger of your 
losing it ? Do you think you can better yourselves on that 
subject by leaving us here under no obligation whatever to 
return those specimens of your movable property that come 
hither? You have divided the Union because wo would not do 
right with you, as you think, upon that subject ; when we cease 
to be under obligations to do anything for you, how much better 
off do you think you will be ? Will you make war upon us, 
and kill us all ? Why, gentlemen, I think you are as gallant 
and as brave men as live ; that you can fight as bravely in a 
good cause, man for man, as any other people living ; that you 
have shown yourselves capable of this upon various occasions ; 
but, man for man, you are not better than we are, and there are 
not so many of you as there are of us. You will never make 
much of a hand at whipping us. If we were fewer in numbers 
than you, I think that you could whip us; if we were equal, it 
would likely be a drawn battle ; but, being inferior in numbers, 
you will make nothing by attempting to master us. 

But perhaps I have addressed myself as long, or longer, to 
the Kentuckians, than I ought to have done, inasmuch as I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 231 

have said that, whatever course you tak^, wo intend, in the end, 
to beat you. I propose to address a few remarks to our friends, 
by way of discussing with them the best means of keeping that 
promise that I have in good faith made. 

THE FALLACY OF THE DOUGLAS ARGUMENT HISTOmCAL 

STATEMENT. 

It may appear a little episodical for me to mention the topic 
of which I shall speak now. It is a favorable proposition of 
Douglas's that the interference of the General Government, 
through the Ordinance of '87, or through any other act of the 
General Government, never has made, nor ever can make, a free 
State ; that the Ordinance of '87 did not make free States of 
Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois. That these States are free upon his 
" great principle " of popular sovereignty, because the people 
of those several States have chosen to make them so. At 
Columbus, and probably here, he undertook to compliment the 
people that they themselves have made the State of Ohio free, 
and that the Ordinance of '87 was not entitled in any degree to 
divide the honor with them. I have no doubt that the people 
of the State of Ohio did make her free according to their own 
will and judgment, but let the facts be remembered. 

In 1802, I believe, it was you who made your first constitu- 
tion with the clause prohibiting slavery, and you did it, I sup- 
pose, very nearly unanimously ; but you should bear in mind 
that you, — speaking of you as one people, — that you did so 
unembarrassed by the actual presence of the institution amongst 
you ; that you made it a free State, not with the embarrassment 
upon you of already having among you many slaves, which, if 
they had been here, and you had sought to make a free State, 
you would not know what to do with. If they had been among 
you, embarrassing difficulties, most probably, would have in- 
duced you to tolerate a slave constitution instead of a free one, 
as indeed these very difficulties have constrained every people 
on this continent who have adopted slavery. 

Pray, what was it that made you free? What kept you free ? 



232 THE SPEECHES OF 

Did you not find your country free when you came to decide 
tliat Ohio should be a free State ? It is important to inquire 
by what reason you found it so V Let us take an illustration 
between the States of Ohio and Kentucky. Kentucky is 
separated by this River Ohio, not a mile wide. A portion of 
Kentucky, by reason of the course of the Ohio, is further north 
than this portion of Ohio in which we now stand. Kentucky 
is entirely covered with slavery ; Ohio is entirely free from it. 
What made that difference ? Was it climate ? No ! A portion 
of Kentucky was further north than this portion of Ohio. Was 
it soil ? No ! There is nothing in the soil of the one more 
favorable to slave labor than the other. It was not climate or 
soil that caused one side of the line to be entirely covered with 
slavery, and the other side free of it. AVhat was it ? Study 
over it. Tell us, if you can, in all the range of conjecture, if 
there be anything you can conceive of that made that difference, 
other than that there was no law of any sort keeping it out of 
Kentucky ? while the Ordinance of '87 kept it out of Ohio. If 
there is any other reason than this, I confess that it is wholly 
beyond my power to conceive of it. This, then, I offer to 
combat the idea that that Ordinance has never made any State 
free. 



I don't stop at this illustration. I come to the State of In- 
diana ; and what I have said as between Kentucky and Ohio, 
I repeat as between Indiana and Kentucky ; it is equally appli- 
cable. One additional argument is applicable also to Indiana. 
In her territorial condition she more than once petitioned Con- 
gress to abrogate the Ordinance entirely, or at least so far as to 
suspend its operation for a time, in order that they should exer- 
cise the " popular sovereignty " of having slaves if they wanted 
them. The men then controlling the General Government, imi- 
tating the men of the Revolution, refused Indiana that privilege. 
And so we have the evidence that Indiana supposed she could 
have slaves, if it were not for that Ordinance ; that she besought 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 233 

Congress to put that barrier out of tlie way ; that Cnnirress re- 
fused to do so, and it all ended at last in Indiana being a free 
State. Tell me not then that the Ordinance of '87 bad notbinw 
to do with making Indiana a free State, when we find some men 
chafing against and only restrained by that barrier. 



Come down again to our State of Illinois. The great North- 
west Territory, including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and 
"Wisconsin, was acquired first, I believe, by the British Govern- 
ment, in part at least from the French. Before the establish- 
ment of our independence, it became a part of Virginia ; 
enabling Virginia afterward to transfer it to the General Gov- 
ernment. There were French settlements in what is now Illinois, 
and at the same time there were French settlements in what is 
now Missouri, in the tract of country that was not purchased 
till about 1803. In these French settlements negro slavery had 
existed for many years, — perhaps more than a hundred, if not 
as much as two hundred years, — at Kaskaskia, in Illinois, and 
at St. Genevieve, or Cape Girardeau, perhaps, in Missouri. 
The number of slaves was not very great, but there was about 
the same number in each place. They were there when we 
acquired the territory. There was no effort made to break up 
the relation of master and slave, and even the Ordinance of 
1787 was not so enforced as to destroy that slavery in Illinois ; 
nor did the Ordinance apply to Missouri at all. 

What I want to ask your attention to, at this point, is that 
Illinois and Missouri came into the Union about the same time; 
Illinois in the latter part of 1818, and Missouri, after a strug- 
gle, I believe sometime in 1820. They had been filling up 
with American people about the same period of time ; their 
progress enabling them to come into the Union about the same. 
At the end of that ten years, in which they had been so pre- 
paring (for it was about that period of time), the number of 
slaves in Illinois had actually decreased ; while in Missouri, be- 
ginning with very few, at the end of that ten years, there were 



234 THE SPEECHES OP 

about ton thousand. This being so, and it being remembered 
that Missouri and Illinois are, to a certain extent, in the same 
parallel of latitude, — that the northern half of Missouri and 
the southern half of Illinois are in the same parallel of latitude, 
— so that climate would have the same effect upon one as upon 
the other, and that in the soil there is no material difference, so 
far as bears upon the question of slavery being settled upon one 
or the other, — there being none of those natural causos to pro- 
duce a difference in filling them, and yet there being a broad 
difference in their filling up, we are led again to inquire what 
was the cause of that difference ? 

It is most natural to say that in Missouri there was no law to 
keep that country from filling up with slaves, while in Illinois 
there was the Ordinance of '87. The Ordinance being there, 
slavery decreased during that ten years ; the Ordinance not 
being in the other, it increased from a few to ten thousand. 
Can anybody doubt the reason of the difference ? 

I think all these facts most abundantly prove tbat my friend 
Judge Douglas's proposition, that the Ordinance of '87, or the 
national restriction of slavery, never had a tendency to make a 
free State, is a fallacy — a proposition without the shadow or 
substance of truth about it. 

SLAVERY IN ILLINOIS. 

Douglas sometimes says that all the States (and it is part of 
this same proposition I have been discussing) that have become 
free, have become so upon his "great principle;" that the 
State of Illinois itself came into the Union as a slave State, and 
that the people, upon the " great principle " of popular sov- 
ereignty, have since made it a free State. Allow me but a 
little while to state to you what facts there arc to justify him in 
saying that Illinois came into the Union as a slave State. 

I have mentioned to you that there were a few old French 
slaves there. They numbered, I think, one or two hundred. 
Besides that, there had been a territorial law for indenturing 
black persons. Under that law, in violation of the Ordinance 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 235 

of '87, but without any enforcement of the Ortlinancc to over- 
throw the system, there had been a small number of slaves intro- 
duced as indentured persons. Owing to this the clause for the 
prohibition of slavery was slightly raodifled. Instead of running 
like yours, that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except 
for crime, of which the party shall have been duly convicted, 
should exist in the State, they said that neither slavery nor 
involuntary servitude should thereafter be introduced, and that 
the children of indentured servants should be born free ; and 
nothing was said about the few old French slaves. Out of this 
fact, that the clause for prohibiting slavery was modified because 
of the actual presence of it, Douglas asserts again and again 
that Illinois came into the Union as a slave State. How far the 
facts sustain the conclusion that he draws, it is for intelligent 
and impartial men to decide. I leave it with you with these 
remarks, worthy of being remembered, that that little thing, 
those few indentured servants being there, was of itself suflScient 
to modify a constitution made by a people ardently desiring to 
have a free constitution ; showing the power of the actual 
presence of the institution of slavery to prevent any people, 
however anxious to make a free State, from making it perfectly so. 
I have been detaining you longer perhaps than I ought to do, 

BOGUS vs. GENUINE POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 

I am in some doubt whether to introduce another topic upon 
which I could talk awhile. [Cries of " Go on," and " Give us 
it."] It is this, then : Douglas's popular sovereignty, as a prin- 
ciple, is simply this. If one man chooses to make a slave of an- 
other man, neither that man nor anybody else has a right to ob- 
ject. Apply it to government, as he seeks to apply it, and it is 
this : If, in a new territory, into which a few people are begin- 
ning to enter for the purpose of making their homes, they choose 
to either exclude slavery from their limits, or to establish it (here, 
however one or the other may affect the persons to be enslaved, 
or the infinitely greater number of persons who are afterward 
to inhabit that territory, or the other members of the family of 



236 THE SPEECHES OF 

communities, of which they are but an incipient member, or the 
general head of the family of States as parent of all, — how- 
ever their action may affect one or the other of these, there is no 
power or right to interfere. That is Douglas's popular sover- 
eignty applied. Now I think that there is a real popular sov- 
ereignty in the world. I tliink a deOnition of popular sover- 
eignty, in the abstract, would be about this — that each man 
shall do precisely as he pleases with himself, and with all those 
things which exclusively concern him. Applied in government, 
this principle would be, that a general government shall do all 
those things which pertain to it, and all the local governments 
shall do precisely as they please in respect to these matters 
which exclusively concern them. 

Douglas looks upon slavery as so insignificant that the people 
must decide that question for themselves, and yet they are not 
fit to decide who shall be their governor, judge, or secretary, 
or who shall be any of their officers. These are vast national 
matters, in his estimation, but the little matter in his estimation 
is that of planting slavery there. That is purely of local inter- 
est, which nobody should be allowed to say a word about. 

FALSE AND TKOE IDEAS OF LABOR. 

Labor is *he great source from which nearly all, if not all, 
human comforts and necessities are drawn. There is a difference 
in opinion about the elements of labor in society. Some men 
assume that there is a necessary connection between capital and 
labor, and that conneetion draws within it the whole of the labor 
of the community. They assume that nobody works unless 
capital excites them to work. They begin next to consider 
what is the best way. They say there are but two ways ; one 
is to hire men and to allure them to labor by their consent ; the 
other is to buy the men and drive them to it, and that is slavery. 
Having assumed that, they proceed to discuss the question of 
whether the laborers themselves are better off in the condition 
of slaves or of hired laborers, and they usually decide that they 
are better off in the condition of slaves. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 237 

In the first place, I say that the whole thing is a mistake. 
Th^t there is a certain relation between capital anrl labor, I 
admit. That it does exist, and rightfully exists, I think is true. 
That men who are industrious, and sober, and honest in the pur- 
suit of their own interests should after awhile accumulate capi- 
tal, and after that should be allowed to enjoy it in peace, and 
also if they should choose, when they have accumulated it, to 
use it to save themselves from actual labor, and hire other peo- 
ple to labor for them, is right. In doing so they do not wrong 
the man they employ, for they find men who have not of their 
own land to work upon, or shops to work in, and who are bene- 
fited by working for others, hired laborers, receiving their capi- 
tal for it. Thus a few men that own capital, hire a few others, 
and these establish the relation of capital and labor rightfully. 
A relation of which I make no complaint. But I insist that 
that relation, after all, does not embrace more than one eighth of 
the labor of the country. 

Mr. Lincoln then proceeded to argue that the laborer owning 
himself, should have precedence over him who is forced to labor 
by an owner. He continued. 

HOW FREE LABOR PRINCIPLES WILL TRIUMPH. 

I have taken upon myself, in the name of some of you to say, 
that we expect upon these principles to ultimately beat them. 
In order to do so, I think we want and must have a national 
policy in regard to the institution of slavery, that acknowledges 
and deals with that institution as being wrong. Whoever de- 
sires the prevention of the spread of slavery and the nationaliza- 
tion of that institution, yields all, when he yields to any policy 
that either recognizes slavery as being right, or as being an 
indifferent thing. Nothing will make you successful but setting 
up a policy which shall treat the thing as being wrong. When 
I say this, I do not mean to say that this General Government 
is charged with the duty of redressing or preventing all the 
wrongs in the world ; but I do thmk that it is charged with 



238 THE SPEECHES OP 

proventing and redressing all wrongs wbich are wrongs to 
itself. This Government is expressly charged with the duty 
of providing for the general welfare. We believe that the 
spreading out and perpetuity of the institution of slavery 
impairs the general welfare. We believe, — nay, we know, that 
that is the only thing that has ever threatened the perpetuity 
of the Union itself. The only thing wbich has ever menaced 
the destruction of the Government under which we live, is this 
very thing. To repress this thing, we think, is providing for 
the general welfare. Our friends in Kentucky differ from us. 
We need not make our argument for them, but we who think it 
is wrong in all its relations, or in some of them at least, must 
decide as to our own actions, and our own course, upon our own 
judgment. 

WHAT WE MAY DO, AND WIIAT NOT. 

I say that we must not interfere with the institution of 
slavery in the States where it exists, because the Constitution 
forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so. 
We must not withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave Law because 
the Constitution requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold 
such a law. But we must prevent the outspreading of the insti- 
tution, because neither the Constitution nor general welfare 
requires us to extend it. We must prevent the revival of the 
African slave-trade, and the enacting by Congress of a terri- 
torial slave code. We must prevent each of these things being 
done by either congresses or courts. The people of these 
United States are the rightful masters of both congresses and 
courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the 
men who pervert the Constitution. 

To do these things we must employ instrumentalities. We 
must hold conventions ; we must adopt platforms, if we con- 
form to oi'dinary custom ; we must nominate candidates, and we 
must carry elections. In ail these things, I think that we 
ought to keep in view our real purpose, and in none do any- 
thing that stands adverse to our purpose. If we shall adopt 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 239 

a platform that fails to recognize or express our purpose, or elect 
a man that declares himself inimical to our purpose, we not only 
take nothing by our success, but wo tacitly admit that we act 
upon no other principle than a desire to have " the loaves and 
fishes," by which, in the end, our apparent success is really aa 
injury to us. 

WHO SHOULD BE THE CANDIDATE. 

I know that this is very desirable with me, as with everybody 
else, that all the elements of the Opposition shall unite in the 
nest presidential election and in all future time. I am anxious 
that that should be, but there are things seriously to be consid- 
ered in relation to that matter. If the terms can be arranged, I 
am in favor of the Union. But suppose we shall take up some 
man and put him upon one end or the other of the ticket, who 
declares himself against us in regard to the prevention of the 
spread of slavery ; who turns up his nose and says he is tired 
of hearing anything more about it ; who is more against us than 
against the enemy, — what will be the issue ? Why, he will get 
no slave States, after all, — he has tried that already, until being 
beat is the rule for him. If we nominate him upon that ground, 
he will not carry a slave State, and not only so, but that portion 
of our men who are high-strung upon the principle we really 
fight for, will not go for him, and he won't get a single electoral 
vote anywhere, except, perhaps, in the State of Maryland. 
There is no use in saying to us that we are stubborn and obsti- 
nate, because we won't do some such thing as this. We cannot 
do it. We cannot get our men to vote it. I speak by the 
card, that we cannot give the State of Illinois in such case by 
fifty tliousand. We should be flatter down than the " Negro 
Democracy " themselves have the heart to wish to see us. 

"UE WHO GATHERETU NOT WITH US, SCATTERETH." 

After saying this much, let me say a little on the other side. 
There ase plenty of men in the slave States that are altogether 
good enough for me to be either President or Vice-President, 



240 THE SPEECHES OP 

provided they will profess their sympathy with our purpose, and. 
will place themselves on the ground that our men, upon prin- 
ciple, can vote for them. There are scores of them, good meu 
in their character for intelligence and talent and integrity. If 
such a one will place himself upon the right ground, I am for 
his occupying one place upon the next Republican or Oppusilion 
ticket. I will heartily go for him. But unless he does so place 
himself, I think it a matter of perfect nonsense to attempt to 
bring about a union upon any other basis, — that if a union be 
made, the elements will scatter so that there can be no success 
fur such a ticket, nor anything like success. The good old 
maxims of the Bible are applicable, and truly applicable, to 
human affairs ; and in this, as in other things, we may say here, 
that he who is not for us, is against us, — he who gathereth not 
with us, scattereth. I should be glad to have some of the many 
good, and able, and noble men of the South to place themselves 
where we can confer upon them the high honor of an election 
upon one or the other end of our ticket. It would do my soul 
good to do that thing. It would enable us to teach them that, 
inasmuch as we select one of their own number to carry out our 
principles, we are free from the charge that we mean mure than 
we say. 

But, my friends, I have detained you much longer than I 
expected to do. I believe I may do myself the compliment to 
say that you have stayed and heard me with great patience ; for 
which I return you my most sincere thanks. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 241 



NATIONAL POLITICS AND THE REPUBLICAN 
PLATFORM. 

DELIVERED AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 

28, 18G0. 

THE speaker's PREMISES. 

Mr. President and Fellow Citizens of New York : The facts 
with which I shall deal this evening are mainly old and familiar ; 
nor is there anything new in the general use I shall make of 
them. If thei'O shall be any novelty, it will be in the mode of 
presenting the facts, and the inferences and observations follow- 
ing that presentation. In his speech, last autumn, at Colum- 
bus, Ohio, as reported in the New York Times, Senator Douglas 
said : — 

"Our fathers, when they framed the Government under 
which we live, understood this question just as well, and even 
better, than we do now." 

I fully indorse this, and I adopt it as a text for this discourse. 
[Applause.] I so adopt it because it furnishes a precise and 
an agreed starting-point for a discussion between the Republi- 
cans and that wing of the Democracy headed by Senator Doug- 
las. It simply leaves the inquiry, — What was the understand- 
ing those fathers had of the question mentioned ? What is the 
frame of government under which we live ? The answer must 
be, the Constitution of the United States. That Constitution 
consists of the original, framed in 1787, (and under which the 
present Government first went into operation,) and twelve sub- 
sequently framed amendments, the first ten of which were framed 
in 1789. 

16 



242 THE SPEECHES OP 

THE FATHEKS OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

Who were our fathers that framed the Constitution ? The 
" thirty-nine " who signed the original instrument may be fairly 
called our fathers who framed that part of the jjresent Govern- 
ment. It is almost exactly true to say they framed it, and it is 
altogether true to say they fairly represented the opinion and 
sentiment of the whole nation at that time. Their names being 
familiar to nearly all, and accessible to quite all, need not now be 
repeated. I take these "thirty-nine," for the present, as l)cing 
" our fathers who framed the Government under which we live." 
What is the question which, according to the text, those fathers 
understood as well and even better than we do now ? It is 
this: "Does the proper division of local from federal au- 
thority, or anything in the Constitution, forbid our Federal Gov- 
ernment to control as to slavery in our federal territories? " 

DOUGLAS AND LINCOLN. 

Upon this Douglas hold the affirmative, and Republicans the 
negative. The affirmative and denial form an issue ; and this 
ii.sue, this question, is precisely what the text declares our 
fathers understood better than we. [Cheers.] Let us now in- 
quire whether the " thirty -nine," or any of them, ever acted up jn 
this question; and if they did, how they acted upon it, — how 
they expressed that better understanding. In 178t, three 
years before the Constitution, the United States then owning 
the Northwestern Territory, and no other, the Congress of the 
Confederation had before them the question of prohibiting 
slavery in that territory; and four of the ■' thirty-nine " who 
afterwards framed the Constitution were in that Congress, and 
voted on that question. Of these, Ivoger Sherman, Thomas 
MifHin, and Hugh Williamson voted for the prohibition, thus 
showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing local from 
federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the Fed- 
eral Government to control as to slavery in federal territory. 

The other of the four, James McHenry, voted against the 



ABHAnAM LIXCOLN. 243 

prnhibition, showing that for some cause ho thouglit it im- 
proper to vote for it. In 1787, still before the Constitu- 
tion, but while the Convention was in session framing it, and 
•while the Northwestern Territory still was the only territory 
owned by the United States, — the same question of prohibiting 
slavery in the territory again came before the Congress of the 
Confederation, and three more of the "thirty-nine " who after- 
wards signed the Constitution were in that Congress, and voted 
on that question. They were William Blount, William Few, 
and Abraham Baldwin, and they all voted for the prohibition, 
thus showing that, in their understanding, no line dividing local 
from federal authority, nor anything else, properly forbade the 
Federal Government to control as to slavery in federal terri- 
tory. 

TUE OKDINANCE OF 1787. 

This time the prohibition became a law, being a part of what 
is now well known as the Ordinance of 1787. The question of 
federal control of slavery in the territories seems not to have 
been directly before the Convention which framed the original 
Constitution ; and hence it is not recorded that the " thirty- 
nine," or any of them, while engaged on that instrument, ex- 
pressed any opinion on that precise question. In 1790, by the 
first Congress which sat under the Constitution, an act was 
passed to enforce the Ordinance of 17S7, including the pro- 
hibition of slavery in the Northwestern Territory. The bill 
for this act was reported by one of the " thirty-nine," Thomas 
Fitzsimmons, then a member of the House of Representatives, 
from Pennsylvania. It went through all its stages without a 
word of opposition, and finally passed both branches without 
yeas and nays, which is equivalent to a unanimous passage. 
[Cheers.] In this Congress there were sixteen of the "thirty- 
nine " fathers who framed the original Constitution. They 
were 

John Langdon, Thomas Fitzsimmons, Bichard Bassctt, Nich- 
olas Gilman, Wm. Few, George Head, Wm. S. Johnson, Abra- 



244 THE SPEECHES OF 

ham Baldwin, Pierce Butler, Roger Sherman, Rufus King, 
Daniel Carrull, Robert Morris, Wm, Patterson, James Madison, 

George Clymer. 

This shows that, in their understanding, no line dividhig lo- 
cal from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, 
properly forbade Congress to prohibit slavery in the federal ter- 
ritory, else both their fidelity to correct principle, and their oath 
to support the Constitution would have constrained them to op- 
pose the prohibition. 

OPINIOX OF GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

Again, George Washington, another of the " thirty-nine," 
was then the President of the United States, and, as such, ap- 
proved and signed the bill, thus completing its validity as a law, 
and thus showing that, in his understanding, no line dividing 
local from federal authority, nor anything in the Constitution, 
forbade the Federal Government to colitrol as to slavery in fed- 
eral territory. [Loud applause.] No great while after tlie 
ailoption of the original Constitution, North Carolina ceded to 
the Federal Government the country now constituting the State 
of Tennessee ; and a few years later, Georgia ceded that which 
now constitutes the States of Mississippi and Alabama. In both 
deeds of session, it was made a condition by the ceding States, 
that the Federal Government should not prohibit slavery in the 
ceded country. Under these circumstances, Congress, en tak- 
ing charge of these countries, did not absolutely prohibit slavery 
within them. 

CONGRESS DID INTERFERE. 

But they did interfere with it, — take control of it, — even 
there, to a certain extent. In 1798 Congress organized the Ter- 
ritory of Mississippi. In the act of organization they prohibited 
the bringing of slaves into the territory, from any place with- 
out the United States, by fine, and giving freedom to slaves so 
brought. This act passed both branches of Congress without 
yeas and nays. In that Congress were three of the " thirty-nine '' 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 245 

wbo framed the original Constitution. They were John Lan^- 
don, George Head, and Abraham Baldwin. They all probably 
voted for it. Certainly they would have placed their opposition 
to it upon record, if, in their understanding, any line dividing 
local and federal authority, or anything in the Constitution, 
properly forbade the Federal Government to control as to sla- 
very in federal territory. [Applause.] 

In 1803, the Federal Government purchased the Louisiana 
country. Our former territorial acquisitions came from certain 
of our own States, but this Louisiana country was acquired 
from a foreign nation. In 1804, Congress gave a territorial 
organization to that part of it which now constitutes the State 
of Louisiana. New Orleans, lying within that part, was an old 
and comparatively large city. There were other considerable 
towns and settlements, and slavery was extensively and 
thoroughly intermingled with the people. Congress did not, in 
the territorial act, prohibit slavery ; but they did interfere with 
it, take control of it, in a more marked and extensive way than 
they did in the case of Mississippi. 

THE LOUISIANA PROVISO. 

The substance of the provision therein made, in relation to 
slaves, was this : — 

First. That no slave should be imported into the territory 
from foreign parts. 

Second. That no slave should be carried into it who had 
been imported into the States since the first day of May, 1798. 

Third. That no slave should be carried into it, except by the 
owner, and for his own use as a settler ; the penalty, in all the 
cases, being a fine upon the violator of the law, and the freedom 
to the slave. [Prolonged cheers.] 

This act also was passed without yeas or nays. In the Con- 
gress which passed it, there were two of the " thirty-nine." 
They were Abraham Baldwin and Jonathan Dayton. As stated 
in the case of iMississippi, it is probable they both voted for it. 
They would not have allowed it to pass without recording their 



246 THE SPEECHES OF 

opposition to it, if, in their understanding, it violated either the 
line properly dividing local from federal authority, or any pro- 
vision of the Constitution. Many votes were taken, by yeas 
and nays, in both branches of Congress, upon the various phas-es 
of the general question. Two of the "thirty-nine," Kufus King 
and Charles Pinckney, were members of that Congress. Mr. 
King steadily voted for slavery prohibition, and against all 
compromises, while Mr. Pinckney has steadily voted against 
slavery prohibition, and against all compromises. [Cheers.] 
.By this, Mr. King showed that, in his understanding, no line 
dividing local from federal authority, nor anything in the 
Constitution, was violated by Congress prohibiting slavery in 
federal territory, while Mr. Pinckney, by his votes, showed 
that, in his understanding, there was some sufficient reason for 
opposing such prohibition in that case. 

TUE FATHERS ON RECORD. 

The cases I have mentioned are the only acts of the *' thirty- 
nine," or any of them, upon the direct issue, which I have been 
able to discover. To enumerate the persons who thus acted, as 
being four in 1784, three in 1787, seventeen in 1789, three in 
1708, two in 1804, and two in 1819-20, there would be thirty- 
one of them. But this would bo counting John Langdon, 
Koger Sherman, William Few, Paifus King, and George Read, 
each twice, and Abraham Baldwin four times. [Applause.] 
He was a Georgian, too. [Pienewed applause and laughter.] 
The true number of those of the "thirty-nine" whom I have 
shown to have acted upon the question, which, by the text, they 
understood better than we, is twenty-three, leaving sixteen not 
to have acted upon it in any way. Here, then, we have twenty- 
three of our " thirty-nine " fathers, who framed the Government 
under which we live, who have, upon their official responsibility 
and their corporal oaths, acted upon the very question which 
the text affirms they " understood just as well, and even better 
than we do now," and twenty-one of them — a clear majority 
of the whole thirty-uine — so acting upon it as to make them 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 247 

guilty of gross political impropriety and wilful perjury, if, in 
their understanding, any proper division between local and 
federal autliority, or anything in the Constitution they had 
made themselves, and sworn to support, forbade tlic Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories. 
[Cheers.] Thus the twenty-one acted ; and as actions speak 
louder than words, so actions under such responsibility speak 
still louder. Two of the twenty-three voted against the con- 
gressional prohibition of slavery in the federal territories, in 
the instances in which they acted upon the question. But for 
what reason they so voted is not known. They may have done 
so because they thought a proper division of local from federal 
authority, or some provision or principle of the Constitution, 
stood in the way ; or they may, without any such question, have 
voted against the prohibition, or what appeared to them to be 
sufficient grounds of expediency. 

THE EESPONSIBILITY OF TUE OATU TO SUPPORT THE 
CONSTITUTION. 

No one who has sworn to support the Constitution can con- 
scientiously vote for what he understands to be an unconstitu- 
tional measure, however expedient he may think it ; but one 
may and ought to vote against a measure which he deems con- 
stitutional, if, at the same time, he deems it inexpedient. It 
therefore would be unsafe to set down even the two who voted 
against the prohibition, as having done so because, in their 
understanding, any proper division of local from federal author- 
ity, or anything in the Constitution, forbade the Federal Gov- 
ernment to control as to slavery in federal territory. [Laugh- 
ter and prolonged applause.] The remaining sixteen of the 
" thirty-nine," so far as I have discovered, have left no record 
of their understanding upon the direct question of federal con- 
trol of slavery in the federal territories. 

But there is much reason to believe that their understanding 
upon that question would not have appeared different from that 
of their twenty-three compeers, had it been manifested at all. 



248 THE SPEECHES OP 

For the purpose of adhering rigidly to the text, I have purposely 
omitted whatever understanding may have been manifested by 
any person, however distinguished, other than the thirty-nine 
fathers who framed the original Constitution ; and, for the same 
reason, I have also admitted whatever understanding may have 
been manifested hj any of the " thirty-nine" even, on any other 
phase of the general question of slavery. If we should look 
into their acts and declarations on those other phases, as the 
foreign slave-trade, and the morality and policy of slavery gen- 
erally, it would appear to us, that on the direct question of 
federal control of slavery in the federal territories, the sixteen, 
if they had acted at all, would probably have acted just as the 
twenty-three did. 

ANTI-SLAVEEY MEN OF THE LAST CENTURY. 

Among that sixteen were several of the most noted anti- 
slavery men of those times, — as Dr. Franklin, Alexander 
Hamilton, and Gnu verneur Morris, — while there was not one now 
known to have been otherwise, unless it may be John Ilutledge, 
of South Carolina. [Applause.] The sum of the whole is, 
that of our "thirty-nine" fathers who framed the original Con- 
stitution, twenty-one, — a clear majority of the whole, — cer- 
tainly understood that no proper division of local from federal 
authority, nor any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control slavery in the federal territories, while 
all the rest, probably, had the same understanding. Such, 
unquestionably, was the understanding of our fathers who framed 
the original Constitution ; and the text affirms that tliey under- 
stood the question better than we. [Laughter and cheers.] 

But, so far, I have been considering the understanding of the 
question manifested by the framers of the original Constitution. 
In and by the original instrument, a mode was provided for 
amending it ; and, as I have already stated, the present frame 
of government under which we live consists of that original, and 
twelve amendatory articles framed and adopted since. Those 
who now insist that federal control of slavery in federal terri- 



ABRAHAM LTXCOIA\ 249 

tories violates the Constitution, point us to the provision's which 
they suppose it thus violates; and, as I understand, they all fix 
upon provisions in these amendatory articles, and not in that 
instrument. 

THE SDPKEME COURT IX TUE DRED SCOTT CASE. 

The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case plant themselves 
upon the first amendment, which provides that " no person shall 
be deprived of property, without due process of law ;" while 
Senator Douglas, and his peculiar adherents, plant themselves 
upon the tenth amendment, providing that " the powers not 
granted by the Constitution are reserved to the States respec- 
tively and to the people." Now, it so happens that these 
amendments were framed by the first Congress which sat under 
the Constitution, — the identical Congress which passed the act 
already mentioned, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the 
Northwestern Territory. [Applause.] Not only was it the 
same Congress, but they were the identical same individual men 
who, at the same session, at the same time within the session, 
had under consideration, and in progress towards maturity, these 
constitutional amendments, and this act prohibiting slavery in 
all the territory the nation then owned. 

The constitutional amendments were introduced before and 
passed after the act of enforcing the Ordinance of '87 ; so that 
during the whole pendency of the act to enforce the ordinance, 
the constitutional amendments were also pending. That Con- 
gress, consisting in all of seventy-six members, including sixteen of 
the framers of the original Constitution, as before stated, were 
pre-eminently our fathers who framed that part of the Government 
under which we live, which is now claimed as forbidding the 
Federal Government to control slavery ia the federal terri- 
tories. Is it not a little presumptuous in any one at this day to 
afBrm that the two things which that Congress deliberately 
framed, and carried to maturity at the same time, are absolutely 
inconsistent with each other ? 



250 THE SPEECHES OF 



THE ABSURDITY OF CUARGINO IXCOXSISTE.VCY UPON THE FATHERS. 

And does not such affirmation become impudently absurd 
when coupled with the other affirmation, from the same mouth, 
that those who did the things alleged to be inconsistent under- 
stood whether they really were inconsistent better than we, — 
better than he who affirms that they are inconsistent ? [Applause 
and great merriment.] It is surely safe to assume that the 
" thirty-nine " framers of the original Constitution, and the 
seventy-six members of the Congress which framed the amend- 
ments thereto, taken altogether, do certainly include those who 
may be fairly called " our fathers who framed the government 
under which we live." And so assuming, I defy any man to 
show that any one of them ever in his whole life declared that, 
in his understanding, any proper division of local from federal 
authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal 
Government to control as to slavery in the federal territories. 
[Loud applause.] 

I go a step further, I defy any one to show that any living 
man in the whole world, ever did, prior to the beginning of the 
present century, (and I might almost say prior to the beginning 
of the last half of the present century,) declare that, in his un- 
derstanding, any proper division of local from federal authority, 
or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal Government 
to control as to slavery in the federal territories. To those 
who so now declare, I give, not only " our fathers who framed 
the government under which we live," but with them all 
other living men within the century in which it was framed, 
among them to search, and they shall not be able to find the 
evidence of a single man agreeing with them. Now and here, 
let me guard a little against being misunderstood. 

MODERN DOCTRINES FALSE AND DECEPTIVE. 

I do not mean to say we are bound to follow implicity in what^ 
ever our fathers did. To do so would be to discard all the lights 
of current experience, — to reject all progress, all improvemeut. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 251 

What I do say is, that if we would supplant the opinions and 
policy of our fathers, in any case, we should do so upon evi- 
dence so conclusive, and argument so clear, that even their 
great authority, fairly considered and weighed, cannot stand ; 
and most surely not in a case whereof we ourselves declare they 
understood the question better than we. [Laughter.] If any 
man, at this day, sincerely believes that a proper division of 
local from federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, for- 
bids the Federal Government to control as to slavery in the 
feJeral territories, he is right to say so, and to enfurce his posi- 
tion by all truthful evidence and fair argument which he can. 
But he has no right to mislead others, who have less access to 
history and less leisure to study it, into the false belief that " our 
fathers, who framed the government under which we live," were 
of the same opinion, — thus substituting falsehood and deception 
for truthfid evidence and fair argument. [Applause.] If any man 
at this day sincerely believes " our fathers who framed the gov- 
ernment under which we live," used and applied principles, in 
other cases, which ought to have led them to understand that a 
proper division of local from federal authority, or some part of the 
Constitution, forbids the federal government to control as to slavery 
in the federal territories, he is right to say so. But he shoJild, 
at the same time, brave the responsibility of declaring that, in 
his opinion, he understands their principles better than they 
did themselves, — [great laughter,] — and especially should he 
not shirk that responsibility by asserting that they " understood 
the question just as well, and even better, than we do now." 
[Applause.] 

WHAT REPUBLICANS ASK AND DESIRE. 

But enough. Let all who believe that our " fathers, who 
framed the government under which we live, understood this 
question just as well, and even better than we do now," speak 
as they spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is all l\epub- 
licaus ask, — all Republicans desire in relation to slavery. As 
those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an evil not 



252 THE SPEECHES OP 

to be extended, but to be tolerated, and protected only because 
of and so far as its actual presence among us make tbat tolera- 
tion and protection a necessity. [Loud applause.] Let all . 
the guarantees those fathers gave it, bo not grudgingly, but 
fully and fairly maintained. For this Republicans contend, 
and with this, so far as I know or believe, they will be content. 
[Applause.] 

And now, if they would listen — as I suppose they will not — 
I would address a few words to the Southern people. [Laugh- 
ter.] I would say to them : You consider yourselves a reason- 
able and a just people, and I consider that in the general 
qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other 
people ; still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so 
only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better 
than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, 
but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." [Laughter.] 

THE KEPUBLICAN PARTY NOT SECTIONAL 

In all your contentions with one another, each of you deem 
an unconditional condemnation of " Black Republicanism " as 
the first thing to be attended to. [Laughter.] Indeed, such 
condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite — 
license, so to speak — among you to be admitted or permitted to 
speak at all. Now, can you or not be prevailed upon to pause 
and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to 
yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, 
and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify. 
You say we are sectional. We deny it. [Loud applause.] 
That makes an issue, and the burden of proof is upon you. 
[Laughter and applause.] You produce your proof: and 
•what is it ? Why, that our party has no existence in your sec- 
tion, — gets no votes in your section. The fact is substantially 
true ; but does it prove the issue ? If it does, then, in case we 
should, without change of principle, begin to get votes in your 
section, we should thereby cease to be sectional. [Great merri- 
ment.] Y'ou cannot escape this conclusion ; and yet, are you 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 253 

willing to abide by it? If you are, you will prnbubly soon find 
tbat we have ceased to be sectional, for we shall get votes in 
your section this very year. [Loud cheers.] You will then 
begin to discover, as the truth plainly is, that- your proof does 
not touch the issue. The fact that we get no votes in your sec- 
tion is a fiict of your making, and not ours. As if there bo 
fault in that fact, that fault is primarily yours, and remains until 
you show that we repel you by some wrong principle or practice. 
If we do repel you by any wrong principle, the fault is ours ; 
but this brings you to where you ought to have started, — to a 
discussion of the right or wrong of our principle. [Loud 
applause.] 

Washington's farewell address. 

If our principle, put in nractice, would wrong your section 
for the benefit of ours, or for any other object, then our princi- 
ple, and we with it, are sectional, and are justly opposed and 
denounced as such. Meet us, then, on the question of whether 
our principle, put in practice, would wrong your section ; and 
so meet it as if it were possible that something may be said on 
our side. [Laughter.] Do you accept the challenge ? No. 
Then you really believe that the principle which our fathers, 
who framed the government under which we live, thought so 
clearly right as to adopt it, and indorse it again and again, 
upon their ofiScial oaths, is, in fact, so clearly wrong as to de- 
mand your condemnation without a moment's consideration. 
[Applause.] 

Some of you delight to flaunt in our faces the warning against 
sectional parties given by Washington in his Farewell Address. 
Less than eight years before Wai^hington gave that warning, ho 
had, as President of the United States, approved and signed an 
act of Congress, enforcing the prohibition of slavery in the 
Northwestern Territory, which act embodied the policy of the 
Government upon that subject, up to and at the very moment 
he penned that warning ; and about one year after he penned 
it, be wrote to Lafayette that he contiidered that prohibition a 



254 THE SPEECHES OP 

wise measure, expressing in the same connection bis hope that 
we should some time have a confederacy of free States. [Ap- 
plause.] Bearing this in mind, and seeing that sectionalism has 
since arisen upon this same subject, is that warning a weapon in 
your hands against us, or in our hands against you ? Could 
Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that 
sectionalism upon us who sustain his policy, or upon you who 
repudiate it ? [Applause.] "We respect that warning of 
Washington, and we commend it to you, together with his ex- 
ample, pointing to the right application of it. [Applause.] But 
you say you are conservative, — eminently conservative, — while 
we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. 

POLITICAL COXSERTATISM. 

What is conservatism ? Is it not adherence to the old and 
tried, against the new and untried T We stick to, contend for, 
the identical old policy, on the point in controversy, which was 
adopted by our fathers who framed the government under which 
we live ; while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit 
upon the old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. 
True, you disagree among yourselves as of what that substitute 
shall be. You have a variety of new propositions and plans, 
but yoU' arc unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old 
policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign 
slave-trade ; some for a congressional slave code for the terri- 
tories ; some for Congress forbidding the territories from pro- 
hibiting slavery within their limits ; some for maintaining slavery 
in the territories through the judiciary ; some for the " gur-reat 
pur-rlnciple " — [laughter] — that " if one man would enslave 
another, no third man should object," fantastically called " pop- 
ular sovereignty," — [renewed laughter and applause,] — but 
never a man among you in favor of federal prohibition of slavery 
in federal territories, according to the practice of our fathers, 
who framed the government under which we live. 

Not one of your various plans can show a precedent or an 
advocate in the century within which our Government originated. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 255 

Consider, then, whether your claim of conservatism for your- 
selves, and your charge of destructiveness against us, are based 
on the most clear and stable foundations. Again, you say we 
have made the slavery question more prominent than formerly. 
We deny it. We admit that it is more prominent, but we deny 
that we made it so. It was not we, but you, who discarded the 
old policy of the fathers. We resisted, and still resist, your 
innovation, your want of conservatism, and thence comes the 
greater prominence of the question. Would you have that 
question reduced to its former proportions ? Go back to that 
old policy. What has been, will be again, under the same con- 
ditions. If you would have the peace of the old times, readopt 
the precepts and policy of the old times. [Applause.] 

JOHN BROWN AND HARPEr's FERRY. 

You charge that we stir up insurrection among your slaves. 
We deny it ; and what is your proof ? Harper's Ferry ! 
[Great laughter.] John Brown ! [Renewed laughter.] John 
Brown was no Republican, and you have failed to implicate a 
single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. [Loud 
applause.] If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, 
you know it, or you do not know it. If you do know it, you 
are inexcusable to not designate the man, and prove the fact. 
If you do not know it, you are inescusabk to assert it, and 
especially to persist in the assertion after you have tried and 
failed to make the proof. [Great applause.] You need not be 
told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be 
true is simply a malicious slander. [Applause.] Some of you 
generously admit that no Republican designedly aided or 
encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair, but still insist that our 
doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We 
know we hold no doctrines, and make no declarations, which 
were not held to and made by our fathers, who framed the 
government under which we live. [Applause.] You never 
dealt fairly by us in relation to this aftiiir. 



256 THE SPEECHES OP 



EFFECTS OF THE INVASION ON LATE ELECTIONS. 

Wbea it occurred, some important State elections were near 
at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by 
charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us 
in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations 
were not quite fulfilled. [Laughter.] You did not sweep New 
York, and New Jersey, and Wisconsin, and Minnesota, precisely 
like fire sweeps over the prairie in high wind. [Laughter.] 
You are still drumming at this idea. Go on with it. If you 
think you can, by slandering a woman, make her love you, or 
by vilifying a man make him vote with you, go on and try it. 
[Boisterous laughter, and prolonged applause.] Every Repub- 
lican man knew that, as to himself, at least, your charge was a 
slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in 
your favor. 

Republican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with 
a continual protest against any interference whatever with your 
slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this does not 
encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common with our 
fathers, who framed the government under which we live, declare 
our belief that slavery is wrong ; [applause ;] but the slaves do 
not hear us declare even this ; for everything we say or do, the 
slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I 
believe they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your 
misrepresentation of us in their hearing. In your political 
contests among yourselves, each faction charged the other with 
sympathy for the Black Republicans ; and then, to give point 
to the charge, define Black Republicanism to be simply insur- 
rection, blood and thunder among the slaves. [Boisterous 
laughter and applause.] 

SLAVE INSURRECTIONS. 

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were 
before the Republican party was organized. What induced the 
Southampton insuirection, twenty years ago, in which, at least, 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 257 

three times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry ? You 
can scarcely stretch your very clastic fancy to the conclusion 
that Southampton was got up by Black Republicanism. 
[Laughter.] In the present state of things in the United 
States, I do not think a general or even a very extensive slave 
insurrection, is possible. The indispensable concert of action 
cannot be obtained. The slaves have no means of rapid com- 
munication ; nor can incendiary free men, black or white, supply 
it. The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels, but 
there neither are nor can be supplied the indispensable con- 
necting trains. 

Much is said by Southern people about the affection of slaves 
for their masters and mistresses, and a part of it, at least, is 
true. A plot for an uprising could scarcely be devised and 
communicated to twenty individuals, before some one of them, 
to save the life of a favorite matter or mistress, would divulge 
it. This is the rule ; and the slave revolution in Hayti was not 
an exception to it, but a ease occurring under peculiar circum- 
stances. The gunpowder plot of British history, though not 
connected with slaves, was more in point. In this case, only 
about twenty were admitted to the secret, and yet one of them, 
in his anxiety to save a friend, betrayed the plot to that friend, 
and, by consequence, averted the calamity. Occasional poison- 
ings from the kitchen, and open or stealthy assassinations in the 
field, and local revolts extending to a score or so, will continue 
to occur as the natural results of slavery ; but no general insur- 
rection of slaves, as I think, can happen in this country for a 
long time. Whoever much fears, or much hopes, for such an 
event, will be alike disappointed. 

THE NATIONAL JUDGMENT AND FEELING. 

There is a judgment and feeling against slavery in this nation 
which cast, at least, "a million and a half of votes. You cannot 
destroy that judgment and feeling, that sentiment, by breaking 
up the political organization which rallies around it. You can 
scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed 
17 



258 THE SPEECHES OP 

into order in the heaviest fire, but, if you could, how much 
would you gain by forcing the sentiment -which created it out 
of the peaceful channel of the ballot box into some other chan- 
nel ? What would that other channel probably be ? Would 
the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the 
operation ? But you will break up the Union, rather than sub- 
mit to a denial of your constitutional rights. That has a some- 
what reckless sound ; but it would be palliated, if not fully 
justified, were we proposing, by mere force of numbers, to 
deprive yon of some right plainly written down in the Constitu- 
tion. But we are proposing no such thing. When you make 
these declarations, you have a specific and well-understood 
allusion to an assumed constitutional right of yours to take 
slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as 
property. 

SILENCE OF THE CONSTITUTION AS TO THE RIGHT OF TAKING 
SLAVES INTO THE TERRITORIES. 

But no such right is specifically written in this Constitution. 
That instrument is literally silent about any such right. We, 
on the contrary, deny that such a right has any existence in the 
Constitution, even by implication. [Applause.] Your pur- 
pose, then, plainly stated, is, that you will destroy the Govern- 
ment, unless you be allowed to coastrue and enforce the Con- 
stitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and 
us. You will ruin or rule in all events. This, plainly stated, is 
your language to us. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court 
has decided the disputed constitutional question in your favor. 
Not quite so. But waving the lawyers' distinction between 
dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for 
you in a sort of way. The Court substantially said, it is your 
constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories, 
and to hold them there as property. Wlien I say the decision 
was made in a sort of a way, I mean it was made in a divided 
court by a bare majority of the judges, and they not quite 
agreeing with one another in tlie reasons for making it ; that it 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 259 

is SO ma;le as that its avowed supporters disagree witli one 
another about its meaning ; and that was mainly based upon a 
mistaken statement of fact, — the statement in the opinion that 
" the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution." 

SLAVES CONSIDERED AS PERSONS AND NOT AS PROPERTY. 

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of 
property in a slave is not distinctly and expressly affirmed in it. 
[Applause.] Bear in mind, the judges do not pledge their 
ju licial opinion that such a right is impliedly affirmed in the 
Constitution, but they pledge their veracity that it is distinctly 
and expressly affirmed there — "distinctly" — that it is not 
mingled with anything else — expressly, that is, in words mean- 
ing just that without the aid of any inference, and susceptible of 
no other meaning. If they had only pledged their judicial 
opinion that such right is affirmed in the instrument by impli- 
cation, it would be open to others to show that neither the word 
" slave " nor " slavery "is to be found in the Constitution, nor 
the word " property " even, in any connection with language 
alluding to the things, slave or slavery, [applause,] and that 
wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called 
a " person," and wherever his master's legal right in relation 
to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as " service or labor due," 
as a " debt " payable in service and labor. Also, it would be 
open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of 
alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was 
employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea 
that there could be property in man. 

THE SUPREME COURT TO RECONSIDER THEIR DECISION. 

To show all this is easy and certain. When this obvious 
mistake of the judges shall be brought to their notice, is it not 
reasonable to expect that they will withdraw the mistaken state- 
ment, and reconsider the conclusion based upon it ? And then 
it is to be remembered that " our fathers, who framed the gov- 



-260 , THE SPEECHES OP 

ernment under which we live," — the men who made the Con- 
stitution, — decided this same constitutional question in our 
favor long ago, — decided it without a division among them- 
selves, when making the decision ; without division among 
themselves about the meaning of it after it was made ; and, so 
far as any evidence is left, without basing it upon any mistaken 
statement of facts. Under all these circumstances, do you 
really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government, 
unless such a court decision of yours is, shall be at once sub- 
mitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action ? 

DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 

But you will not abide the election of a Republican President. 
In that supposed event, you say you will destroy the Union ; 
and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be 
upon us ! [Laughter.] That is cool. [Great laughter.] A 
highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his 
teeth, ". Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and you will be 
a murderer !" [Continued laugliter.] To be sure, what the 
robber demanded of me — my money — was my own, and I 
had a clear right to keep it ; but it was no more my own than 
my vote is my own, — [" That's so," and applause,] — and the 
threat of death to me, to extort ray money, and. the threat of 
destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be dis- 
tinguished in principle. 

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable 
that all parts of this great confederacy shall be at peace and har- 
mony one with another. Let us Republicans do our part to 
have it so. [" We will," and applause.] Even though much 
provoked, let us do nothing througli passion and ill-temper. 
Even though the Southern people will not so much as listen to 
us, let us calmly consider their demands, and yield to them, if 
in our deliberate view of our duty we possibly can. Judging 
by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their 
controversy with us, let us determine, if wo can, what will 
satisfy them. AV'ill they be satisfied if the territories be uucon- 



ABKAIIAM LINCOLN. 261 

ditionally surrendered to them ? We know they will not. In 
all their present complaints against us, the territories are 
scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rago 
now. Will it satisfy them if, in the future, we have nothin"' to 
do with invasions and insurrections ? We know it will not. 
We so know because we know wc never had any thin f to do 
with invasions and insurrections ; and yet this total abstaining 
does not exempt us from the charge and the dcnunciaiion. 

THE DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. 

The question recurs. What will satisfy them ? Simply this : 
We must not only let them alone, but, we trust, somehow con- 
vince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by expe- 
rience, is no easy task. We have been trying to so convince 
them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no 
success. In all our platforms and speeches, we have constantly 
protested our purpose to let them alone ; but this has had no 
tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, 
is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any 
attempt to disturb them. These natural and apparently ade- 
quate means all failing, what will convince them ? This, and 
this only : Cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling 
it right. And this must be done thoroughly, — done in acts as 
well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated, — we must place 
ourselves avowedly with them. Douglas's new sedition law 
must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that 
slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pul- 
pits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive 
slaves with greedy pleasure ; we must pull down our free State 
constitutions ; the whole atmosphere must be disinfected from 
all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to 
believe that all their troubles proceed from us. I am quite 
aware they do not state their case precisely in this way. Most 
of them would probably say to us, " Let us alone, do nothing to 
us, and say what you please about slavery." But we do let 
them alone, — have never disturbed them, — so that, after all, 



262 THE SPEECHES OF 

it is what we say which dissatisfies them. They will continue 
to accuse us of doing, until we cease saying. I am also aware 
they have not as yet, in terms, demanded the overthrow of our 
free State constitutions. 

THE GIST OF TUB CONTROYERSY, 

Yet those constitutions declare the wrong of slavery with 
more solemn emphasis than do all sayings against it ; and, when 
all these other sayings shall have been silenced, the overthrow 
of these constitutions will be demanded, and nothing be left to 
resist the demand. It is nothing to the contrary that they do 
not demand the whole of this just now. Demanding what they 
do, and for the reason they do, they can voluntarily stop no- 
where short of this consummation. Holding as they do, that 
slavery is morally right and socially elevating, they cannot cease 
to demand a full national recognition of it as a legal riglit and 
a social blessing. [Applause.] Nor can we justifiably with- 
hold this on any ground save our conviction that slavery is 
wrong. 

Tf slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions 
against it are themselves wrong, and should be silenced and 
swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nation- 
ality, — its universality ; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist 
upon its extension, — its enlargement. All they ask we could 
readily grant, if we thought slavery right ; all we ask, they 
could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their think- 
int^ it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon 
which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as 
they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, 
as being right ; hut thinking it wrong, as we do, can wo yield 
to them ? Can we cast our votes with this view, and against 
our own ? In view of our moral, social, and political responsi- 
bilities, can we do this ? [" No, no," and applause.] 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 263 



SLAVERY NOT TO BE INTERFERED WITH WHERE IT ALREADY 
EXISTS. 

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it 
alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity aris- 
ing from its actual presence in the nation ; but can we, while 
our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the national 
territories, and to overrun us here in these free States ? ['• No, 
never," and applause. A voice — "Guess not." Laughter.] 
If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our 
duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none 
of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industri- 
ously plied and belabored, — contrivances such as groping for 
some middle ground, between the right and the wrong, vain as 
the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a 
dead man, — such as a policy of " don't care " on a question 
about which all men care, — such as Union appeals, beseeching 
true Union men to yield to disunionists, reversing the divine rule, 
and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance, — 
[prolonged cheers and laughter,] — such as invocations of 
"Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, 
and undo what Washington did. Neither let us be slandered 
from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened 
from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of 
dungeons to ourselves. [Applause.] Let us have faith that 
light makes might ; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to 
do our duty as we understand it. 



264 THE SPEECHES OP 



THE ILLINOIS SENATORIAL CANVASS. 

We extract from the various speeches of Mr. Lincoln, during 
the debates between himself and Judge Douglas, the following 
passages. 

JEFFERSON, AND THE RIGHTS OF THE AFRICAN. 

The Judge has alluded to the Declaration of Independence, 
and insisted that negroes are not included in that Declaration ; 
and that it is a slander upon the framers of that instrument, to 
suppose that negroes were meant therein ; and he asks you : Is 
it possible to believe that 3Ir. Jefferson, who penned the immor- 
tal paper, could have supposed himself applying the language 
of that instrument to the negro race, and yet held a portio)i of 
that race in slavery ? Would he not at once have freed them ? 
I only have to remark upon this part of the Judge's speech, (and 
that, too, very briefly, for I shall not detain myself, or you, upon 
that point for any great length of time,) that I btlieve the entire 
records of the world, from the date of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, up to within three years ago, may be searched in vain 
for one single affirmation, from one single man, that the negro 
•was not included in the Declaration of Independence. I think 
I may defy Judge Douglas to show that he ever said so, that 
Washington ever said so, that any President ever said so, that 
any member of Congress ever said so, or that any living man 
upon the whole earth ever said so, until the necessities of the 
present policy of the Democratic party, in regard to slavery, had 
to invent that affirmation. And I will remind Judge Douglas 
and this audience, that while Mr. Jefferson was the owner of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN^ 265 

slaves, as undoubtedly lie was, in speaking upon this very sub- 
jijct, ho used the strong language that " he trembled for his 
CDuntry, when he reiuenibercd God was just ;" and I will offer 
the highest premium in my power to Judge Douglas if he will 
show that he, in all his life, ever uttered a sentiment at all akin 
to that of Jefferson. 

BOUGLAS'S NEGROPHOBIA. 

Douglas accused his opponent of making speeches to suit the 
different opinions of the communities in which he spoke. Mr. 
Lincoln thus disposes of the statement. 

Now a few words in regard to these extracts from speeches of 
mine which Judge Douglas has read to you, and which he sup- 
poses are in very great contrast to each other. Those speeches 
have been before the public for a considerable time, and if they 
have any inconsistency in them, if there is any conflict in them, 
the public have been able to detect it. When the Judge says, 
in speaking on this subject, that I make speeches of one sort for 
the people of the northern end of the State, and of a different 
sort for the Southern people, he assumes that I do not under- 
stand that my speeches will be put in print and read North and 
South. I knew all the while that the speech I made at Chicago, 
and the one I made at Jonesboro', and the one at Charleston, 
would all be put in print, and all the reading and intelligent 
men in the community would see them and know all about my 
opinions. And I have not supposed, and do not now suppose, 
that there is any conflict whatever between them. But the 
Judge will have it, that if we do not confess that there is a 
sort of inequality between the white and the black races, which 
justifies us in making them slaves, we must, then, insist that 
there is a degree of equality that requires us to make them our 
wives. Now, I have all the while taken a broad distinction ia 
regard to that matter ; and that is all there is in these different 
speeches which he arrays here, and the entire reading of either 
of the speeches will show that that distinction was made. Per- 



266 THE SPEECHES OF 

happ, by taking two parts of the same speech, he could have got 
up as much of a conflict as the one be has found. I have all the 
while maintained, that in so far as it should be insisted that 
there was an equality between the white and black races that 
should produce a perfect social and political equality, it was an 
impossibility. This you have seen in my printed speeches, and 
with it I have said, that in their right to " life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness," as proclaimed in that old declaration, the 
inferior races are our equals. And these declarations I have 
constantly made in reference to the abstract moral question, to 
contemplate and consider when we are legislating about any new 
country which is not already cursed with the actual presence of 
the evil, slavery. I have never manifested any impatience with 
the necessities that spring from the actual presence of black peo- 
ple amongst us, and the actual existence of slavery amongst us 
where it does already exist ; but I have insisted that, in legislat- 
ing for new countries, where it does not exist, there is no just 
rule other than that of moral and abstract right ! With refer- 
ence to those new countries, those maxims as to the right of a 
people to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," were the 
just rules to be constantly referred to. There is no misunder- 
standing this, except by men interested to misunderstand it. I 
take it that I have to address an intelligent and reading com- 
munity, who will peruse what I say, weigh it, and then judge 
whether I advance improper or unsound views, or whether I 
advance hypocritical, and deceptive, and contrary views in dif- 
ferent portions of the country. I believed myself to be guilty 
of no such thing as the latter, though, of course, I cannot claim 
that I am entirely free from all error in the opinions I advance. 

TUE UEPUBLICAN AND DOUGLAS SECTIONALISM, 

The Judge has also detained us awhile in regard to the dis- 
tinction between his party and our party. His he assumes to 
be a national party, — ours a sectional one. He does this in 
asking the question whether this country has any interest in the 
maintenance of the Republican party. He assumes that our 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 267 

party is altogetber sectional, — that the party to wliicli he ad- 
heres is national ; and the argument is, that no party can bo a 
rightful party, — can bo based upon rightful principles, — unless 
it can announce its principles everywhere. I presume that 
Judge Douglas could not go into Pvussia and announce the doc- 
trine of our national Democracy ; he could not denounce the 
doctrine of kings and emperors and monarchies in llussiu ; and 
it may be true of this country, that in some places we may not 
be able to proclaim a doctrine as clearly true as the truth of 
Democracy, because there is a section so directly opposed to it 
that they will not tolerate us in doing so. Is it the true test of 
the soundness of a doctrine, that in some places people won't 
let you proclaim it ? Is that the way to test the truth of any 
doctrine ? Why, I understood that at one time the people of 
Chicago would not let Judge Douglas preach a certain favorite 
doctrine of his. I commend to his consideration tlie question, 
whether he takes that as a test of the unsoundness of what he 
wanted to preach. 

There is another thing to which I wish to ask attention for a 
little while on this occasion. What has always been the evidence 
brought forward to prove that the Republican party is a sectional 
party ? The main one was that, in the Southern portion of the 
Union, the people did not let the Republicans proclaim their doc- 
trines amongst them. That has been the main evidence brought 
forward, — that they had no supporters, or substantially none, in 
the slave States. The South has not taken hold of our princi- 
ples as we announce them ; nor does Judge Douglas now 
grapple with those principles. We have a Republican State 
platform, laid down in Springfield in June last, stating our 
position all the way through the questions before the country. 
We are now far advanced in this canvass. Judge Douglas and 
I have made perhaps forty speeches apiece, and we have now 
for the fifth time met face to face in debate, and up to this day 
I have not found either Judge Douglas or any friend of his 
taking hold of the Republican platform, or laying his finger 
upon anything in it that is wrong. I ask you all to recollect 



2G8 THE SPEECHES OP 

that. Judge Douglas turns away from the platform of princi- 
ples to the ftict that he can find people somewhere who will not 
allow us to announce those principles. If he had great confi- 
dence that our principles were wrong, he would take hold of 
them and demonstrate them to be wrong. But he does not do 
so. The only evidence he has of their being wrong is in the 
fact that there are people who won't allow us to preach them. 
I ask again, is that the way to test the soundness of a doctrine ? 
I ask his attention also to the fact that by the rule of nation- 
ality he is himself fast becoming sectional. I ask his attention 
to the fact that his speeches would not go as current now south 
of the Ohio River as they have formerly gone there. I ask his 
attention to the fact that he felicitates himself to-day that all the 
Democrats of the free States are agreeing with him, while he 
omits to tell us that the Democrats of any slave State agree 
with him. If he has not thought of this, I commend to his 
consideration the evidence in his own declaration, on this day, 
of his becoming sectional too. I see it rapidly approaching. 
Whatever may be the result of this ephemeral contest between 
Judge Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly approaching 
when his pill of sectionalism, which he has been thrusting down 
the throats of Republicans for years past, will be crowded down 
his own throat 

THE VITAL DISTINCTION. 

The Judge tells, in proceeding, that he is opposed to making 
any odious distinctions between free and slave States. I am 
altogether unaware that the Republicans are in favor of making 
any odious distinction between the free and slave States. But 
there still is a difference, I think, between Judge Douglas and 
the Republicans, in this. I suppose that the real difference be- 
tween Judge Douglas and his friends, and the Republicans, on 
the contrary, is that the Judge is not in favor of making any 
difference between slavery and liberty, — that he is in favor of 
eradicating, of pressing out of view, the questions of preference 
in this country for free or slave institutions ; and cor '^quently 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 269 

every sentiment ho utters discards the idea that there is riny 
wrong in slavery. Everything that emanates from him or 
his coadjutors in their course of policy, carefully excludes the 
thouglit that there is anything wrong in slavery. All their 
arguments, if you will consider them, will bo seen to exclude 
the thought that there is anything whatever wrong in slavery. 
If you will take the Judge's speeches, and select the short and 
pointed sentences expressed by him, — as his declaration that 
he " don't care whether slavery is voted up or down," — you 
will see at once that this is perfectly logical, if you do not admit 
that slavery is wrong. If you do admit that it is wrong, Judge 
Douglas cannot logically say he don't care whether a wrong is 
voted up or voted down. Judge Douglas declares that if any 
community want slavery, they have a right to have it. He can 
say that logically, if he says that there is no wrong in slavery ; 
but if you admit that there is a wrong in it, ho cannot logically 
say that anybody has a right to do wrong. He insists that, upon 
the score of equality, the owners of slaves and owners of prop- 
erty, — of horses and every other sort of property, — should 
be alike and hold them alike in a new territory. That is per- 
fectly logical, if the two species of property are alike, and aro 
equally founded in right. But if you admit that one of tliora 
is wrong, you cannot institute any equality between right and 
wrong. And from this difference of sentiment, — the belief on 
the part of one that the institution is wrong, and a policy spring- 
ing from that behef which looks to the arrest of the enlargement 
of that wrong ; and this other sentiment, that it is no wrong, 
and a policy sprung from that sentiment which will tolerate no 
idea of preventing that wrong from growing larger, and looks to 
there never being an end of it through all the existence of 
things, — arises the real difference between Judge Douglas and 
his friends on the one hand, and the Republicans on the other. 
Now, I confess myself as belonging to that class in the country 
who contemplate slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, 
having due regard for its actual existence amongst us, and tiie 
difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and to all 



270 THE SPEECHES OP 

the constitutional obligations which have been thrown about it ; 
1 ut, nevertheless, desire a policy that looks to the prevention of 
it as a wrong, and looks hopefully to the time when as a wrong 
it may come to an end. 

THE SUPREME COURT AND DOUGLAS. 

While we were at Freeport, in one of these joint discussions, 
I answered certain interrogatories which Juilge Douglas had 
propounded to me, and there in turn propounded some to him, 
which he in a sort of way answered. The third one of these 
interrogatories I have with me, and wish now to make some 
conmients upon it. It was in these words : "If the Supreme 
Court of the United States shall decide that the States cannot 
exclude slavery from their limits, are you in favor of acquiescing 
in, adhering to, and following such decision, as a rule of politi- 
cal action ? " 

To this interrogatory Judge Douglas made no answer in any 
just sense of the word. lie contented himself with sneering at 
the thought that it was possible for the Supreme Court ever to 
make such a decision. He sneered at me for propounding the 
interrogatory. I had not propounded it without some reflection, 
and I wish now to address to this audience some remarks upon 
it. 

In the second clause of the sixth article, I believe it is, of 
the Constitution of the United States, we find the following 
language : " This Constitution and the laws of the United 
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties 
made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United 
States, shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the judges in 
every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution 
or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." 

The essence of the Dred Scott case is compressed into the 
sentence which I will now read : " Now, as we have already 
gaid in an earlier part of this opinion, upon a different point, 
the right of property in a slave is distinctl}' and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution." I repeat it: '■'■The right of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 271 

proper tif in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the 
Constitution! ^'' What is it to be "■affirmed''^ in the Con- 
stitution ? Made firm in the Constitution ; so made that it can- 
not be separated from the Constitution without brcakin<T the 
Constitution ; durable as the Constitution, and part of the Con- 
stitution. Now, remembering the provision of the Constitution 
which I have read, aflSrniing that that instrument is the supremo 
law of the land ; that the judges of every State shall be bound 
by it, any law or constitution of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding ; that the right of property in a slave is affirmed 
in that Constitution, is made, formed into, and cannot be sepa- 
rated from it without breaking it ; durable as the instrument ; 
part of the instrument ; — what follows as a short and even 
syllogistic argument from it ? I think it follows, and I submit 
to the consideration of men capable of arguing, whether, as I 
state it, in syllogistic form, the argument has any fault in it ? 

Nothing in the constitution or laws of any State can destroy a 
right distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution of the 
United States. 

The right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution of the United States. 

Therefore, nothing in the constitution or laws of any State 
can destroy the right of property in a slave. 

PROPERTY IN SLAVES NOT RECOGNIZED IN TUE CONSTITUTION. 

I believe that no fault can be pointed out in that argument ; 
assuming the truth of the premises, the conclusion, so far as I 
have capacity at all to understand it, follows inevitably. There 
is a fault in it as I think, but the fault is not in the reasoning ; 
but the falsehood in fact is a fault of the premises. I believe 
that the right of property in a slave is not dij-tinctly and ex- 
pressly affirmed in the Constitution, and Judge Douglas thinks 
it is. I believe that the Supreme Court and the advocates of 
that decision may search in vain for the place in the Constitution 
where the right of a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed. 
I say, therefore, that I think one of the premises is not true iu 



272 THE SPEECHES OP 

fact. But it is true with Judge Douglas. It is true witb the 
Supreme Court •who pronounced it. They are estopped from 
denying it, and, being estopped from denying it, the conclusion 
follows that the Constitution of the United States being the 
supreme law, no constitution or law can interfere with it. It 
being affirmed in the decision that the right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, the 
conclusion inevitably follows that no State law or constitution 
can destroy that right. I then say to Judge Douglas, and to 
all others, that I think it will take a better answer than a sneer 
to show that those who have said that the right of property in a 
slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution, are 
not prepared to show that no constitution or law can destroy 
that right. I say I believe it will take a far better argument 
than a mere sneer to show to the minds of intelligent men that 
whoever has so said is not prepared, whenever public sentiment 
is so far advanced as to justify it, to say the other. This is but 
an opinion, and the opinion of one very humble man ; but it is 
my opinion that the Dred Scott decision, as it is, never would 
have been made in its present form if the party that made it 
had not been sustained previously by the elections. My own 
opinion is, that the new Dred Scott decision, deciding against 
the right of the people of the States to exclude slavery, will 
never be made if that party is not sustained by the elections. I 
believe, further, that it is just as sure to be made as to-morrow 
is to come, if that party shall be sustained. I have said, upon a 
former occasion, and I repeat it now, that the course of argu- 
ment that Judge Douglas makes use of upon this subject (I 
charge not his motives in this), is preparing the public mind for 
that new Dred Scott decision. I have asked him again to point 
out to me th^ reasons for his first adherence to the Dred Scott 
decision as it is. I have turned his attention to the fact that 
General Jackson differed with him in regard to the political 
obligation of a Supreme Court decision. I have asked his 
attention to the fact that Jefferson differed with him in regard 
to the political obligation of a Supreme Com-t decision. Jeffer- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLX. 273 

son said, that "judges are as honest as other men, and not more 
so." And he said, substantially, that " whenever a free people 
should give up in absolute submission to any department of 
government, retaining for themselves no appeal from it, their 
liberties were gone." I have asked his attention to the fact 
that the Cincinnati platform, upon which he says he stands, 
disregards a time-honored decision of the Supreme Court, in 
denying the power of Congress to establish a National Bank. 
I have asked his attention to the fact that he himself was one of 
the most active instruments at one time in breaking down the 
Supreme Court of the State of Illinois, because it had made a 
decision distasteful to him, — a struggle ending in the remarka- 
ble circumstance of his sitting down as one of the new judges 
who were to overslaugh that decision ; — getting his title ot 
Judge in that very way. 

Douglas's atheism to liberty. 

So far in this controversy I can get no answer at all from 
Judge Douglas upon these subjects. Not one can I get from 
him, except that he swells himself up, and says, " All of us 
who stand by the decision of the Supreme Court are the friends 
of the Constitution ; all you fellows that dare question it in 
any way are the enemies of the Constitution." Now, in this 
very devoted adherence to this decision, in opposition to all 
the great political leaders whom he has recognized as lead- 
ers, — in opposition to his former self and history, there is 
something very marked. And the manner in which he adheres 
to it, — not as being right upon the merits as he conceives, 
(because he did not discuss that at all,) but as being abso- 
lutely obligatory upon every one simply because of the source 
from whence it comes, — as that which no man can gainsay, 
whatever it may be, — this is another marked feature of 
his adherence to that decision. It marks it in this respect, that 
it commits him to the next decision, whenever it comes, as being 
as obligatory as this one, since he does not investigate it, and 
won't inquire whether this opinion is right or wrong. So he 
18 



274 THE SPEECHES OP 

takes the next one -without inquirinc; whether it is right or wrong. 
He teaches men this doctrine, and in so doing prepares the 
puhlic mind to take the next decision when it comes, without 
any inquiry. In this I think I argue fairly (without question- 
ing motives at all) that Judge Douglas is most ingeniously and 
powerfully preparing the public mind to take that decision when 
it comes ; and not only so, but he is doing it in various other 
ways. In these general maxims about liberty, — in his asser- 
tions that he " don't care whether slavery is voted up or voted 
down ; " that " whoever wants slavery has a right to have it ; " 
that " upon principles of equality it should be allowed to go 
everywhere;" that "there is no inconsistency between free 
and slave institutions." In this he is also preparing (whether 
purposely or not) the way for making the institution of slavery 
national ! I repeat again, for I wish no misunderstanding, that 
I do not charge that he means it so ; but I call upon your minds 
to inquire, if you were going to get the best instrument you 
could, and then set it to work in the most ingenious way, to 
prepare the public mind for this movement, operating in tbe 
free States, where there is now an abhorrence of the insrtitution 
of slavery, could you find an instrument so capable of doing it 
as Judge Douglas ? or one employed in so apt a way to do it ? 
I have said once before, and I will repeat it now, that Mr. 
Clay, when he was once answering an objection to the Coloniza- 
tion Society, that it had a tendency to the ultimate emancipation 
of the slaves, said that "those who would repress all tenden- 
cies to liberty and ultimate emancipation, must do more than 
put down the benevolent efforts of the Colonization Society, — 
they must go back to the era of our liberty and independence, 
and muzzle the cannon that thunders its annual joyous return, — 
they must blot out the moral lights around us, — they must pene- 
trate the human soul, and eradicate the light of reason and the 
love of liberty ! " And I do think, — I repeat, though I said 
it on a former occasion, — that Judge Douglas, and whoever 
like him teaches that the negro has no share, humble though it 
may be, in the Declaration of Independence, is going back to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 275 

the era of our liberty and independence, and, so far as in liiin 
lies, muzzling the cannon that tliundcrs its annual joyous return • 
that ho is blowing out the moral lights around us, when he con- 
tends that whoever wants slaves has a right to hold them ; that 
he is penetrating, so far as lies in his power, the human snul, and 
eradicating the light of reason and the love of liberty, when he 
is in every possible way preparing the public mind, by his vast 
influence, for making the institution of slavery perpetual and 
national. 

ON TERRITOraAL ACQUISITION. 

There is, my friends, only one other point to which I will 
call your attention for the remaining time that I have left me, 
and perhaps I shall not occupy the entire time that I have, as 
that one point may not take me clear through it. 

Among the interrogatories that Judge Douglas propounded to 
me at Freeport, there was one in about this language : " Are 
you opposed to the acquisition of any further territory to the 
United States, unless slavery shall first be prohibited therein ? '* 
I answered as I thought, in this way, that I am not generally 
opposed to the acquisition of additional territory, and that I 
would support a proposition for the acquisition of additional ter- 
ritory, according as my supporting it was or was not calculated 
to aggravate this slavery question amongst us. I then proposed 
to Judge Douglas another interrogatory, which was correlative 
to that : " Are you in favor of acquiring additional territory in 
disregard of how it may affect us upon the slavery question?" 
Judge Douglas answered, that is, in his own way he answered 
it. I believe that, although he took a good many words to 
answer it, it was a little more fully answered than any other. 
The substance of his answer was, that this country would con- 
tinue to expand, — that it would need additional territory, — 
that it was as ab;,urd to suppose that we could continue upon 
our present territory, enlarging in population as we are, as it 
would be to hoop a boy twelve years of age, and expect him to 
grow to man's size without bursting the hoops. I believe it was 



276 THE SPEECHES OF 

sonictliing like that. Consequently, he was in favor of tlie 
acquisition of further territory, as fast as we might need it, in 
disregard of how it might affect the slavery question. I do not 
say this as giving his exact language, but he said so substan- 
tially, and he would leave the question of slavery where the 
territory was acquired, to be settled by the people of the acquir- 
ed territory. ["That's the doctrine."] May-be it is; let us 
consider that for a while. This will probably, in the run of 
things, become one of the concrete manifestations of this slavery 
question. If Judge Douglas's policy upon this question suc- 
ceeds and gets fairly settled down, until all opposition is crushed 
out, the next thing will be a grab for the territory of poor 
Mexico, an invasion of the rich lands of South America, then 
the adjoining islands will follow, each one of which promises 
additional slave fields. And this question is to be left to the 
people of those countries for settlement. "When we shall get 
Mexico, I don't know whether the Judge will be in favor of 
the Mexican people that we get with it settling that question for 
themselves and all others ; because we know the Judge has 
a great horror for mongrels, and I understand that the people of 
]\^exico are most decidedly a race of mongrels. I understand 
that there is not more than one person there out of eight who is 
pure white, and I suppose from the Judge's previous declaration, 
that when we get Mexico or any considerable portion of it, that 
he will be in favor of these mongrels settling the question, 
which would bring him somewhat into collision with his horror 
of an inferior race. 

It is to be remembered, though, that this power of acquiring 
additional territory is a power confided to the President and 
Senate of the United States. It is a power not under the con- 
trol of the representatives of the people any further than 
they, the President and the Senate, can be considered the 
representatives of the people. Let me illustrate that by 
a case we have in our history. When we acquired the ter- 
ritory from Mexico in the Mexican war, the House of Repre- 
sentatives, composed of the immediate rei:»resentatives of the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 277 

people, all the time insisted that the territory thus to be ac- 
quired should be brought in upon condition that slavery should 
be forever prohibited therein, upon the terms and in the lan- 
guage that slavery had been prohibited from coming into this 
country. That was insisted upon constantly, and never failed 
to call forth an assurance that any territory tlius acquired should 
have that prohibition in it, so far as the House of lleprcsenta- 
tives was concerned. But at last the President and Senate 
acquired the territory without asking tlie House of Representa- 
tives anything about it, and took it without that prohibition. 
They liave the power of acquiring territory without the imme- 
diate representatives of thy people being called upon to say 
anything about it, and thus furnishing a very apt and powerful 
means of bringing new territory into the Union, and when it is 
once brought into the country, involving us anew in this slavery 
agitation. It is, therefore, as I think, a very important ques- 
tion for the consideration of the American people, whether the 
policy of bringing in additional territory, without considering at 
all how it will operate upon the safety of the Union in reference 
to this one great disturbing element in our national politics, 
shall be adopted as the policy of the country. You will bear 
in mind that it is to be acquired, according to the Judge's view, 
as fast as it is needed, and the indefinite part of this proposition 
is that we have only Judge Douglas and his class of men to 
decide bow fast it is needed. We have no clear and certain 
way of determining or demonstrating how fast territory is 
needed by the necessities of the country. Whoever wants to 
go out fillibustering, then, thinks that more territory is needed. 
Whoever wants wider slave fields, feels sure that some additional 
territory is needed as slave territory. Then it is as easy to show 
the necessity of additional slave territory as it is to assert any- 
thing that is incapable of absolute demonstration. Whatever 
motive a man or a set of men may have for making annexation 
of property or territory, it is very easy to assert, but much less 
easy to disprove, that it is necessary for the wants of the 
country. — From Mr. Lincoln s repli/ to Judge Boughs, at 
the Fifth Joint Debate, Galeshurg, Oct. 7, 1858. 



THE SPEECHES OP 



A SELF-EVIDENT LIE. 



At Galesburg, the other day, I said, in answer to Judge 
Douglas, that three years ago there never had been a man, so 
far as I knew or believed, in the whole world, who had said that 
the Declaration of Independence did not include negroes in the 
term " all men." I reassert it to-day. I assert that Judge 
Douglas and all his friends may search the whole records of the 
country, and it will be a matter of great astonishment to me if 
they shall be able to find that one human being three years ago 
had ever uttered the astounding sentiment that the term " all 
men " in the Declaration, did not include the negro. Do not 
let me be misunderstood. I know that more than three years 
ago there were men who, finding this assertion constantly in the 
way of their schemes to bring about the ascendency and perpetu- 
ation of slavery, denied the truth of it. I know that 31 r. 
Calboun, and all the politicians of his school, denied the truth 
pf the Declaration. I know that it ran along in the mouth of 
some Southern men for a period of years, ending at last in that 
shameful though rather forcible declaration of Pettit, of Indiana, 
upon the floor of the United States Senate, that the Declaration 
of Independence was in that respect, " a self-evident lie," 
rather than a self-evident truth. But I say, with a perfect 
knowledge of all this hawking at the Declaration without directly 
attacking it, that three years ago there never had lived a man 
who had ventured to assail it in the sneaking way of pretend- 
ing to believe it, and then asserting it did not include the negro. 
I believe the first man who ever said it was Chief Justice Taney, 
in the Dred Scott case, and the nest to him was our friend, 
Stephen A. Douglas. And now it has become the catchword 
of the entire party. I would like to call upon his friends every- 
where to consider how they have come, in so short a time, to 
view this matter in a way so entirely different from their former 
belief? to ask whether they are not being borne along by an 
irresistible current — whither, they know not ? 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 279 

And when tbis new principle — this new proposition tliat no 
human being ever thought of three years ago — is brought for- 
ward, I combat it as having an evil tendency, if not an evil 
design. I combat it as having a tendency to dehumanize the 
negro, — to take away from him the right of ever striving to he 
a man. I combat it as being one of the thousand things con- 
stantly done in these days to prepare the public mind to make 
property, and nothing but property, of the negro, in all the 
States of this Union. 

TIIE CONSTITUTION ON SLAVEIIY. POSITIONS OF THE TWO 

PARTIES. 

Again, the institution of slavery is only mentioned in the 
Constitution of the United States two or three times, and in 
neither of these cases does the word " slavery" or " neoro race" 
occur ; but covert language is used each time, and for a purpose 
full of significance. What is the language in regard to the pro- 
hibition of the African slave-trade ? Jt runs in about this way : 
" The migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be 
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight." 

The nest allusion in the Constitution to the question of sla- 
very and the black race, is on the subject of the basis of repre- 
sentation, and there the language used is, " llepresentatives and 
direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which 
may be included within this Union, according to their respec- 
tive numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole 
number of free persons, including those bound to serve for a 
term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, — three fifths 
of all other persons." 

It says " persons," not slaves, not negroes ; but this " three 
fifths" can be applied to no other class among us than the 
negroes. 

Lastly, in the provision for the reclamation of .fugitive slaves, 
it is said : *' No person held to service or labor in one State, 



280 THE SPEECHES OP 

under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in conse- 
quence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from 
such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the 
party to whom such service or labor may be due." There 
again there is no mention of the word "negro" or of slavery. 
In all three of these places, being the only allusions to slavery 
in the instrument, covert language is used ; language is used 
not suggesting that slavery existed, or that the black race were 
among us ; and I understand the contemporaneous history of tliose 
times to be that covert language was used with a purpose, and 
that purpose was that in our Constitution, which it was hoped 
and is still hoped will endure forever, — when it should be read 
by intelligent and patriotic men, after the institution of slavery 
had passed from among us, — there should be nothing on the 
face of the great charter of liberty suggesting that such a thing 
as negro slavery had ever existed among us. This is pari of the 
evidence that the fathers of the Government expected and 
intended the institution of slavery to come to an end. They 
expected and intended that it should be in the course of ultimate 
extinction. And when I say that I desire to see the further 
spread of it arrested, I only say I desire to see that done which 
the fathers have first done. When I say I desire to see it placed 
where the public mind will rest in the belief that it is in the 
course of ultimate extinction, I only say I desire to see it placed 
where they placed it. It is not true that our fathers, as Judge 
Douglas assumes, made this Government part slave and part 
free. Understand the sense in which he puts it. He assumes 
that slavery is a rightful thing within itself, — was introduced 
by the framers of the Constitution. The exact truth is, that 
they found the institution existing among us, and they left it as 
they found it. But in making the Government, they left this 
institution with many clear marks of disapprobation upon it. 
They found slavery among them, and they left it among them 
because of the difficulty, — the absolute impossibility of its im- 
mediate removal. And when Judge Douglas asks me why we 
cannot let it remain part slave and jiart free, as the fathers of 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 281 

the Government made it, he asks a question based upon an 
assumption which is itself a falsehood ; and I turn upon him 
and ask him the question, When the policy that the fathers of 
the Government had adopted in relation to this element amon" 
us was the best policy in the world, — the only wise jiolicy, — 
the only policy that we can ever safely continue upon, that will 
ever give us peace, unless this dangerous element masters us all 
and becomes a national institution, — I turn upon him and asJc 
him why he could not leave it alone. I turn and ask him why 
be was driven to the necessity of introducing a new policy in re- 
gard to it. He has himself said he introduced a new policy. Ho 
said so in his speech on the 22d of March of the present year, 
1858. I ask him why he could not let it remain where our 
fathers placed it. I ask, too, of Judge Douglas and his friends 
why we shall not again place this institution upon the basis on 
which the fathers left it. I ask you, when he infers that I am 
in favor of setting the free and slave States at war, when the 
institution was placed in that attitude by those who made the 
Constitution, did they make any war'? If we had no war out 
of it, when thus placed, wherein is the ground of belief that we 
shall have war out of it, if we return to that policy ? Have we 
had any peace upon this matter springing from any other basis ? 
I maintain that we have not. I have proposed nothing more 
than a return to the policy of the fathers. 

WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE AGITATION? 

When have we had perfect peace in regard to this thing which 
I say is an element of discord in this Union ? We have some- 
times had peace, but when was it ? It was when the institution 
of slavery remained quite where it was. We have had difficulty 
and turmoil whenever it has made a struggle to spread itself 
where it was not. I ask, then, if experience does not speak in 
thunder-tones, telling us that the policy which has given peace 
to the country heretofore, being returned to, gives the greatest 
promise of peace again. You may say, and Judge Douglas has 
intimated the same thing, that all this difficulty in regard to the 



282 THE SPEECHES OF 

institution of slavery is the mere agitation of office-seekers and 
aniliitious northern politicians. He thinks we want to get '• his 
])lace," I suppose. I agree that there are office-seekers amongst 
us. The Bible says somewhere that we are desperately selfish. 
I think we should have discovered that fact without the Bible. 
I do not claim that I am any less so than the average of men, 
but I do claim that I am not more selfish than Judge Douglas. 

But is it true that all the difficulty and agitation we have in 
regard to this institution of slavery springs from office-seeking, 

— from the mere ambition of poUticians ? Is that the truth ? 
How many times have we had danger from this question ? Go 
back to the day of the Missouri Compromise. Go back to the Nid- 
lification question, at the bottom of which lay this same slavery 
question. Go back to the time of the Annexation of Texas. 
Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of IS.'iO. 
You will find that every time, with the single exception of the 
Nullification question, they sprung from an endeavor to s])read 
this institution. There never was a party in the history of tbis 
country, and there probably never will be, of sufficient strength 
to disturb the general peace of the country. Parties themselves 
may be divided and quarrel on minor questions, yet it extends 
not beyond the parties themselves. But does not this question 
make a disturbance outside of political circles ? Does it not 
enter into the churches and rend them asunder ? What divided 
the great Methodist Church into two parts. North and South ? 
What has raised this constant disturbance in every Presbyterian 
General Assembly that meets? What disturbed the Unitarian 
Church in this very city two years ago ? What has jarred and 
shaken the great American Tract Society recently, not yet split- 
ting' it, but sure to divide it in the end ? Is it not this same 
mi^fi-lity, deep-seated power that somehow operates on the minds 
of men, exciting and stirring them up in every avenue of society, 

— in polities, in religion, in literature, in morals, in all the 
manifold relations of life ? Is this the work of politicians? 
Is that irresistible power, which for fifty years has shaken the 
Government and agitated the people, to be stilled and subdued 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 283 

by pretending that it is an exceedingly simple thing, and we 
ought not to talk about it ? If you will get everybody eke to 
stop talking about it, I' assure you I will quit before they 
have half done so. But where is the philosophy or statesman- 
ship which assumes that you can quiet that disturbing elom(yit 
in our society which has disturbed us for more than half a cen- 
tury, which has been the only serious danger that lias threatened 
our institutions, — I say, where is the philosophy or the stafes- 
nianship based on the assumption that we arc to quit talking 
about it, and that the public mind is all at once to cease being 
agitated by it ? Yet this is the policy here in the north that 
Douglas is advocating, — that we are to care nothing about it ! 
I ask you if it is not a false philosophy '? Is it not a false 
statesmanship that undertakes' to build up a system of [lolicy 
upon the basis of caring nothing about the very thing that every 
body docs care the most about ? — a thing which all experience 
has shown we care a very great deal about? 

FREEDOM OF THE TERKITORIES. 

The Judge alludes very often, in the coui:se of his remarks, 
to the exclusive right which the States have to decide the whole 
thing for themselves. I agree with him very readily, that the 
different States have that right. He is but fighting a man of 
straw when he assumes that I am contending against the right 
of the States to do as they please about it. Our controversy 
with him is in regard to the new territories. We agree that 
when the States come in as States, they have the right and the 
power to do as they please. We have no power as citizens of 
the free States, or in our federal capacity as members of the 
Federal Union through the General Government, to disturb 
slavery in the States where it exists. We profess constantly 
that we have no more inclination than belief in the power of the 
Government to disturb it ; yet we are driven constantly to do- 
fend ourselves from the assumption that we are warring ujjon 
the rights of the States. What I insist upon is, that the new terri- 
tories shall be kept free from it while in the territorial condition. 



284 THE SPEECHES OP 

Judge Douglas assumes that we liave no interest in them, — 
that we liavc no rigl-t whatever to interfere. I think we have 
some interest. I think that as white men we have. Do we not 
wish for an outlet for our surplus population, if I may so express 
n^j'self V Do we not feel an interest in getting to that outlet 
with such institutions as we would like to have prevail there? 
If you go to the territory opposed to slavery, and another man 
comes upon the same ground with his slave, upon the assumption 
tliat the things are equal, it turns out that he has the equal right 
all his way, and you have no part of it your way. If he goes 
in and makes it a slave territory, and by consequence a slave 
State, is it not time that those who desire to have it a free State 
were on equal ground ? Let me suggest it in a different way. 
How many Democrats are there about here [ " A thousand " ] 
wbo have left slave States and come into the free State of 
Illinois to get rid of the institution of slavery ? [Another 
voice, — " A thousand and one."] I reckon there area thousand 
and one. I will ask you, if the policy you are now advocating 
had prevailed when this country was in a territorial condition, 
where would you have gone to get rid of it ? Where would you 
have found your free State or territory to go to ? And when 
hereafter, for any cause, the people in this place shall desire to 
find new homes, if they wish to be rid of the institution, where 
will they find the place to go to ? 

Now, irrespective of the moral aspect of this question as to 
whether there is a right or wrong in enslaving a negro, I am 
still in favor of our new territories being in such a condition 
that white men may find a home, — may find some spot where 
they can better their condition, — where they can settle upon 
new soil, and better their condition in life. I am in favor of 
this not merely (I must say it here as I have elsewhere) for our 
own people who are born amongst us, but as an outlet ^or free 
while people everywhere, the world over, — in wdiieh Hans 
and Daptiste and Patrick, and all other men from all the world, 
may find new homes, and better their conditions iu life. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 285 

THE REAL ISSUE IS SLAVERY RIGHT OR WRONG? 

I have stated upon former occasions, and I may as well state 
again, wbat I understand to be the real issue in tliis controversy 
between Judge Douglas and myself. On the point of my want- 
ing to make war between the free and the slave States, there 
has been no issue between us. So, too, when he assumes that 
I am in favor of introducing a perfect social and political equal- 
ity between the white and black races. These are folse issues, 
upon which Judge Douglas has tried to force the controvers}'. 
There is no foundation, in truth, for the charge that I maintain 
either of these propositions. The real issue in this contro- 
versy — the one pressing upon every mind — is the sentiment 
on the part of one class that looks upon the institution of slavery 
as a wrong, and of another class that does not look upon it as a 
wrong. The sentiment that contemplates the institution of 
slavery in this country as a wrong is the sentiment of the Re- 
publican party. It is the sentiment around which all their ac- 
tions, all their arguments circle, from which all their proposi- 
tions radiate. Tliey look upon it as be ng a moral, social, and 
political wrong; and while they contemplate it as such, they 
nevertheless have due regard for its actual existence among us, 
and the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way 
and to all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. Yet 
having a due regard for these, they desire a policy in regard to 
it that looks to its not creating any more danger. They insist 
that it should, as far as may be, he treated as a wrong, and one 
of the methods of treating it as a wrong is to make provision 
that it shall grow no larger. They also desire a polie-y ihat 
looks to a peaceful end of slavery at some time, as being wrong. 
These are the views they entertain in regard to it, as I under- 
stand them ; and all their sentiments, all their arguments and 
propositions, are brought within this range. I have said, and I 
repeat it here, that if there be a man amongst us who does not 
think that the institution of slavery is wrong in any one of the 
aspects of which I have spoken, he is misplaced and ought not 



286 THE SPEECHES OF 

to be with us. And if there be a man amongst us who is so 
impatient of it as a wrong as to disregard its actual presence 
among us, and the difficulty of getting rid of it suddenly in a 
satisfactory way, and to disregard the constitutional obligations 
thrown about it, that man is misplaced if he is on our plat- 
f(jrm. We disclaim sympathy with him in practical action. 
He is not placed properly with us. 

THE TRUE MODE OF TREATMENT. 

On this subject of treating it as a wrong, and limiting its 
spread, let me say a word. Has anything ever threatened the 
existence of this Union, save and except this very institution of 
slavery? What is it that we hold most dear amongst us? 
Our own liberty and prosperity. What has ever threatened 
our liberty and prosperity save and except this institution of 
slavery ? If this is true, how do you propose to improve the 
condition of things by enlarging slavery, — by spreading it out 
and making it bigger? You may have a wen or cancer upon 
your person, and not be able to cut it out lest you bleed to 
death ; but surely it is no way to cure it, to ingraft and spread 
it over your whole body. That is no proper way of treating 
what you regard a wrong. You see this peaceful way of deal- 
ing with it as a wrong, — restricting the spread of it, and not 
allowing it to go into new countries where it has not already 
exinted. That is the peaceful way, the old-fashioned way, the 
way in which the fathers themselves set us the example. 

THE DEMOCRATIC TREATMENT. 

On the other hand, I have said there is a sentiment which 
treats it as not being wrong. That is the Democratic sentiment 
of this day. I do not mean to say that every one who stands 
within that range, positively asserts that it is right. That class 
will include all who positively assert tliat it is right, and all who 
like Judge Douglas treat it as indifferent, and do not say 
it is cither riglit or wrong. These two classes of men fall within 
the iruueral class of those who do not look upon It as a wrong. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 287 

And if there be among you anybody who supposes tliat ho, as a 
Democrat, can consider himself " as much opposed to slavery as 
anybody," I would like to reason with him. You never treat it 
as a wrong. What other thing that you consider as a wrong, do 
you deal with as you deal with that V Perhaps you suij it is 
wrong, hut your leader never does, and you quarrel with any- 
body who says it is wrong. Although you pretend to say so 
yourself, you can find no fit place to deal with it as a wrong. 
You must not say anything about it in the free States, because 
it is 7iot here. You must not say anything about it in the 
slave States, because it is there. You must not say anything 
about it in the pulpit, because that is religion, and has 
nothing to do with it. You must not say anything about it 
in p'llitics, because thai will disturb the security of " my 
place.'" There is no place to talk about it as being a wrong, 
although you say yourself it is a wrong. But finally, you will 
screw yourself up to the belief, that if the people of the slave 
States should adopt a system of gradual emancipation on the 
slavery question, you would be in favor of it. You would be 
in favor of it. You say that is getting it in the right place, and 
you would be glad to see it succeed. But you are deceiving 
yourself. You all know that Frank Blair and Gratz Brown, 
down there in St. Louis, undertook to introduce that system ia 
Missouri. They fought as valiantly as they could for the system 
of gradual emancipation, which you pretend you would be glad 
to see succeed. Now I will bring you to the test. After a 
hard fight, they were beaten ; and when the news came over 
here, you threw up your hats and hurraed for Democracy ! 
More than that, take all the argument made in favor of the sys- 
tem you have proposed, and it carefully excludes the idea that 
there is anything wrong in the institution of slavery. The argu- 
ments to sustain that policy carefully excluded it. Even here 
to-day you heard Judge Douglas quarrel with me, because I 
uttered a wish that it might some time come to an end. 
Although [lenry Clay could say he wished every slave in the 
United States was in the country of his ancestors, I am 



288 THE SPEECHES OP 

denounced by those pretendin;^ to respect Henry Clay for utter- 
ing a wish that it might some time, in some peaceful way, come 
to an end. The Democratic policy in regard to that institution 
will not tolerate the merest breath, the slightest hint, of the 
least degree of wrong about it. Try it by some of Judpe 
Douglas's arguments. He says, he " don't care whether it is 
voted up or voted down " in the territories. I do not care 
myself, in dealing with that expression, whether it is intended to 
be expressive of his individual sentiments on the subject, or only 
of the national policy he desires to have established. It is alike 
valuable for my purpose. Any man can say that who does not 
see any wrong in slavery, but no man can logically say it wlio 
does see a wrong in it, — because no man can logically say he 
don't care whether a wrong is voted up or voted down. He nuy 
say he don't care whether an indifferent thing is voted up or 
down, but he must logically have a choice between a right thing 
and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever community 
wants slaves, has a right to have them. So they have, if it is 
not a wrong. But if it is a wrong, he cannot say people have a 
right to do wrong. He says that, upon the score of equality, 
fc'laves should be allowed to go in a new territory, like other 
property. This is strictly logical, if there is no difference 
between it and other property. If it and other property are 
equal, his argument is entirely logical. But if you insist that 
one is wrong, and the other right, there is no use to institute a 
comparison between right and wrong. You may turn over 
everything in the Democratic policy from beginning to end, 
whether in the shape it takes on the statute book, in the shape 
it takes in the Dred Scott decision, in the shape it takes in con- 
versation, or the shape it takes in short maxim-like arguments, — 
it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that there is anything 
wrong in it. 

THE COTTON-GIN BASIS. 

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will contitiuc 
in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 289 

myself shall bo silent. It is the eternal wtruggle between these 
two principles — right and wrong — througliout the world. 
They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the 
beginning of time ; and will ever continue to struggle. The one 
is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine ri"ht 
of kings. It it the same principle in whatever shape it devel- 
ops itself. It is the same spirit that says, " You work and toil 
and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it 
comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride 
the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, 
or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, 
it is the same tyrannical principle. I was glad to express ray 
gratitude at Quincy, and I re-express it here to Judge Doug- 
las, — that he looks to no end of the institution of slavery. That 
will help the people to see where the struggle really is. It will 
hereafter place with us all men who really do wish the wrong 
may have an end. And whenever we can get rid of the fog 
which obscures the real question, — when we can get Judge 
Douglas and his friends to avow a policy looking to its perpetua- 
tion, — we can get out from among that class of men and bring 
them to the side of those who treat it as a wrong. Then there 
will soon be an end of it, and that end will be its " ultimate ex- 
tinction. " Whenever the issue can be distinctly made, and all 
extraneous matter thrown out, so that men can foirly see the real 
difference between the parties, this controversy will soon be 
settled ; and it will be done peaceably too. There will be no 
war, no violence. It will be placed again where the wisest and 
best men of the world placed it. Brooks of South Carolina 
once declared that when this Constitution was framed, itsframers 
did not look to the institution existing until this day. Wben he 
said this, I think he stated a fact that is fully borne out by the 
history of the times. But he also said they were better and 
wiser men than the men of these days ; yet the men of these 
days had experience which they had not, and by the invention 
of the cotton-gin it became a necessity in this country that sla- 
very should be perpetual. I now say that, willingly or uuwill- 
19 



290 THE SPEECHES OF 

ingly, purposely or without purpose, Judge Douglas has been 
the most prominent instrument in changing the position of the 
institution of slavery which the fathers of the Government ex- 
pected to come to an end ere this, — and putting it upon 
Brooks's cotton-gin basis, — placing it where he openly con- 
fesses he has no desire there shall ever be an end of it. 

A MONSTROUS DOCTRINE. 

I understand I have ten minutes yet. I will employ it in 
saying something about this argument Judge Douglas uses, 
while he sustains the Dred Scott decision, that the people of the 
territories can still somehow exclude slavery. The first thing I 
ask attention to is the fact that Judge Douglas constantly said, 
before the decision, that whether they could or not, was a ques- 
tion for the Supreme Court. But after the court has made the 
decision, he virtually says it is not a question for the Supreme 
Court, but for the people. And how is it he tells us they can 
exclude it ? He says it needs " police regulations," and that 
admits of "unfriendly legislation." Although it is a right 
established by the Constitution of the United States, to take a 
slave into a territory of the United States, and hold him as 
property, yet unless the territorial legislature will give friendly 
legislation, and, more especially, if they adopt unfriendly legis- 
lation, they can practically exclude him. Now, without meeting 
this proposition as a matter of fact, I pass to consider the real 
constitutional obligation. Let me take the gentleman who 
looks me in the face before me, and let us suppose that he is a 
member of the territorial legislature. The first thing he will 
do will be to swear that he will support the Constitution of the 
United States. His neiglibor by his side in the territory has 
slaves, and needs territorial legislation to enable him to enjoy 
that constitutional right. Can he withhold the legir^lation which 
his neighbor needs for the enjuyment of a right which is fixed 
in his favor in the Constitution of the United States which he 
has sworn to support ? Can ho withhold it without violating liis 
oath 1 And more especially, can he pass unfriendly legislation 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 291 

to violate his oath ? Why, this is a monstrous sort of talk 
about the Constitution of the United States ! There has ncrcr 
been as outlandish or lawless a doctrine from the mouth of any 
respectable man on earth. I do not believe it is a constitu- 
tional right to hold slaves in a territory of the United States. I 
believe the decision was improperly made, and I go for revcrsin'r 
it. Judge Douglas is furious against those who go for revers. 
ing a decision. But he is for legislating it out of all force 
while the law itself stands. I repeat, that there has never 
been so monstrous a doctrine uttered from the mouth of a re. 
spectablo man. 

DOUGLAS THE CHIEF OP ABOLITIONISTS. 

I suppose most of us (I know it of myself) believe that the 
people of the Southern States are entitled to a congressional 
fugitive slave law, — that is a right fixed in the Constitution. 
But it cannot be made available to them without congressional 
legislation. In the Judge's language, it is a "barren richt " 
which needs legislation before it can become efEcicnt and valu- 
aJble to the persons to whom it is guaranteed. And as the right 
is constitutional, I agree that the legislation shall be granted to 
it, — and that not that we like the institution of slavery. We 
profess to have no taste for running and catching niggers, — at 
least, I profess no taste for that job at all. Why then do I 
yield support to a fugitive slave law ? Because I do not under- 
stand that the Constitution, which guarantees that right, can be 
supported without it. And if I believed that the right to hold 
a slave in a territory was equally fixed in the Constitution with 
.the right to reclaim fugitives, I should be bound to give it the 
legislation necessary to support it. I say that no man can deny 
his obligation to give the necessary legislation to support slavery 
in a territory, who believes it is a constitutional right to have it 
there. No man can, who does not give the allolitioni^ts an 
argument to deny the obligation enjoined by the Constitution to 
enact a fugitive slave law. Try it now. It is the strongest 
abolition argument ever made. I say if that Dred Scott do- 



292 THE SPEECHES OF 

cision is correct, then the right to hold slaves in a territory is 
ec|ually a constitutional right with the right of a slaveholder to 
have his runaway returned. No one can show the distinction 
between them. The one is express, so that we cannot deny it. 
The other is construed to be in the Constitution, so that he who 
believes the decision to be correct, believes in the right. And 
the man who argues that by unfriendly legislation, in spite of 
that constitutional right, slavery may be driven from the terri- 
tories, cannot avoid furnishing an argument by which abolition- 
ists may deny the obligation to return fugitives, and claim the 
power to pass laws unfriendly to the right of the slaveholder to 
reclaim his fugitive. I do not know how such an argument 
may strike a popular assembly like this, but I defy anybody to 
go before a body of men whose minds are educated to estimating 
evidence and reasoning, and show that there is an iota of differ- 
ence between the constitutional right to reclaim a fugitive, and 
the constitutional right to hold a slave, in a territory, provided 
this Dred Scott decision is correct. I defy any man to make 
an argument that will justify unfriendly legislation to deprive a 
slaveholder of his right to hold his slave in a territory, that will 
not equally, in all its length, breadth, and thickness, furnish an 
argument for nullifying the fugitive slave law. Why, there is 
not such an abolitionist in the nation as Douglas, after all. — 
From the Seventh Joint Debate in Alton, III, Oct. 15, ]858. 

Douglas's doctrine op unfriendly legislation by the 
territories on slavery. 

At the end of what I have said here, I propose to give the 
Judge my fifth interrogatory, which he may take and answer at 
his leisure. My fifth interrogatory is this. 

If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Territory 
should need and demand congressional legislation for the pro- 
tection of their slave property in such territory, would you, as 
a member of Congress, vote for or against such legislation ? 

Judge Douglas — " AVill you repeat that 't I want to answer 
that question." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 293 

Mr. Lincoln — If the slaveholding citizens of a United 
States Territory should need and demand conc;ressi()nal lo;.Msla- 
tion for the protection of their slave property in such territriry, 
would you, as a member of Congress, vote for or against such 
legislation ? 

I am aware that, in some of the speeches Judge Douglas has 
made, he has spoken as. if he did not know or think that the 
Supreme Court had decided that a territorial legislature can- 
not exclude slavery. Precisely what the Judge would say upon 
the subject, — whether he would say definitely that he does not 
understand they have so decided, or whether he would say he 
does understand that the court have so .decided, I do not know; 
but I know that in his speech at Springfield he spoke of it as a 
thing they had not decided yet ; and in his answer to me at 
Freeport, he spoke of it so far again, as I can comprehend it, 
as a thing that had not yet been decided. Now I hold that if 
the Judge does entertain that view, I think that he is not mis- 
taken in so far as it can be said that the Court has not decided 
anything save the mere question of jurisdiction. I know the 
legal arguments that can be made. — that after a court has de- 
cided that it cannot take jurisdiction in a case, it then has decid- 
ed all that is before it, and that is the end of it. A plausible 
argument can be made in favor of that proposition, but I know 
that Judge Douglas has said in one of his speeches that the 
court went forward, like honest men as they were, and decided 
all the points in the case. If any points are really extra- 
judicially decided because not necessarily before them, then this 
one as to the power of the territorial legislature to exclude 
slavery is one of them, as also the one that the Missouri Com- 
promise was null and void. They are both extra-judicial, or 
neither is, according as the court held that they had no jurisdic- 
tion in the case between the parties, because of want of capacity 
of one party to maintain a suit in that court. I want, if I have 
sufficient time, to show that the court did pass its opinion, but 
that is the only thing actually done in the case. If they did not 
decide, they showed what they were ready to decide whenever 



294 THE SPEECHES OP 

the matter was before them. What is that opinion ? After 
having argued that Congress had no power to pass a law ex- 
cluding slaver J from a United States territory, they then used 
language to this^ offjct : That inasmuch as Congress itself 
could not exercise such a power, it followed as a matter of course 
that it could not authorize a territorial government to exercise 
it, for the territorial legislature can do no more than Congress 
could do. Thus it expressed its opinion emphatically against 
the power of a territorial legislature to exclude slavery, leav- 
ing us in just as little doubt on that point as upon any other 
point they really decided. — From the Third Joint Debate at 
Joneshoro\ September 15, 1858. 

THE REPUBLICAN METHOD. 

We have in this nation this element of domestic slavery. It 
is a matter of absolute certainty that it is a disturbing element. 
It is the opinion of all the great men who have expressed an 
opinion upon it, that it is a dangerous element. We keep up a 
controversy in regard to it. That controversy necessarily 
springs from difference of opinion, and if we can learn exactly, 
can reduce to the lowest elements, what that difference of opinion 
is, we perhaps shall be better prepared for discussing the differ- 
ent systems of policy that we would propose in regard to that 
disturbing element. I suggest that the difference of opinion, 
reduced to its lowest terms, is no other than the difference be- 
tween the men who think slavery a wrong, and those who do 
not think it wrong. The Republican party think it wrong, — 
we think it is a moral, a social, and a political wrong. We 
think it is a wrong not confining itself merely to the persons 
or the States where it exists, but that it is a wrong in its ten- 
dency, to say the least, that extends itself to the existence of 
the whole nation. Because we think it wrong, we propose a 
course of policy that shall deal with it as a wrong. We deal 
with it as with any other wrong, in so far as we can prevent 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 295 

its growing any larger, and so deal with it that in the nm 
of time there may be some promise of an end to it. AVo 
Lave a due regard to the actual prcsonee uf it ainongs^t us, and 
the difficulties of getting rid of it in any satisfactory way, and 
all the constitutional obligations thrown about it. I siipnoso 
that in reference both to its actual existence in the nation, and 
to our constitutional obligations, we have no right at all to 
disturb it in the States where it exists, and we profess that we 
have no more inclination to disturb it than we have the ri'dit to 
do it. We go fuither than that ; we don't propose to disturb it 
where, in one instance, we think the Constitution would permit 
us. We think the Constitution would permit us to disturb it in 
the District of Columbia. Still, we do not propose to do that, 
unless it should be in terms which I don't suppose the nation is 
very likely soon to agree to, — the terms of making the emanci- 
pation gradual, and compensating the unwilling owners. Where 
we suppose we have the constitutional right, we restrain our- 
selves in reference to the actual existence of the institution, and 
the difficulties thrown about it. We also oppose it as an evil 
so far as it seeks to spread itself. We insist on the policy that 
shall restrict it to its present limits. We don't sujipose that in 
doing this we violate anything due to the actual presence of the 
institution, or anything due to the constitutional guaranties 
thrown around it. 

THE DECLAR.\.TIOiS[ OF INDEPENDENCE. 

The Declaration of Independence was formed by the rep- 
resentatives of American liberty from thirteen States of the 
Confederacy, — twelve of which were slavebolding communities. 
We need not discuss the way or the reason of their becoming 
slavebolding communities. It is sufficient for our purpose that 
all of them greatly deplored the evil, and that they placed a 
provision in the Constitution which they supposed would gradu- 
ally remove the disease by cutting off its source. This was the 
abolition of the slave-trade. So general was the conviction, — 
the public determination, — to abolish the African slave-trade, 



296 THE SPEECHES OF 

that the provision which I have referred to as being placed in 
the Constitution, declared that it should not be abolisljod prior 
to the year 1808. A constitutional provision was neoestary to 
prevent the people, through Congress, from putting a stop to 
the traffic imiuediately at the close of the war. Now, if .slavery 
had been a good thing, would the fathers of the Republic have 
taken a step calculated to diminish its beneficent influences 
among themselves, and snatch the boon wholly from their pos- 
terity ? These communities, by their representatives in old In- 
dependence Hall, said to the whole world of men : — 

We hold these truths to be self-evident ; that all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness." This was their majestic interpreta- 
tion of the economy of the universe. This was their lofty, and 
wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to 
bis creatures. [Applause.] Yes, gentlemen, to all his crea- 
tures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened 
belief, nothing stamped with the divine image and likeness was 
sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and im- 
bruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of 
man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the 
farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their chil- 
dren and their children's children, and the countless myriads 
who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as 
they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed 
tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, 
that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some 
interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or 
none but white men, or none but Anglo-Saxons, were entitled 
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might 
look up again to the Declaration of Independence, and take 
courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, — so 
that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and 
Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land ; so 
that no man hereafter would dare to limit and circumscribe the 



Ar.HAnAM -LIXCOT.N. 207 

prroat principles on wliicli the temple of liberty was being built. 
[Loud cheers.] 

Now, u)y countrymen, if you have been taught iloetriiies enn- 
flicting with the great landmarks of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence ; if you have listened to suggestions which would 
take away from its grandeur, and mutilate the synnnctry of its 
pro[)()rtions ; if you have been inclined to believe that all men 
arc nat created equal in those inalienable rights enumerated l)y 
our chart of liberty, let me entreat you to come back. Return 
to the fountain whose waters spring close by the blood of the 
Ptcvolution. Think nothing of me, — take no thought for the 
political fate of any man whomsoever, — but come back to the 
truths that are in the Declaration of Independence. You may 
do anything with me you choose, if you will but heed these 
sacred principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, 
but you may take me and put me to death. While pretending 
no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be actuated ia 
this contest by something higher than any anxiety for office. I 
charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for 
any man's success. It is nothing ; I am nothing ; Judge 
Dou<^las is nothing. But do not destroy that immortal emblem 
of humanity, — the Declaration of American Independence. 



298 THE SPEECHES OP 



MIL LINCOLN IN CONGRESS. 

In illustration of Mr. Lincoln's position on the Mexican war, 
Bounty Lands, Disposal of the Public Domain, etc., we annex 
some extracts from congressional speeches. Most of the issues 
are dead which then excited the nation. The extracts will 
serve to show Mr. Lincoln's position, and be the best answer 
to any statements by his opponents, based thereon. 

MEXICAN W.\K RESOLUTIONS OF INQUIRY. 

On the 22d of December, Mr. Lincoln moved the following 
preambles and resolutions, which were read and laid over under 
the rule : — 

" Whereas, the President of the United States, in his niessa -e 
of May 11, 1846, has declared that 'the Mexican Government 
not only refused to receive him, (the envoy of the United 
Stales,) or listen to his propositions, but after a long-continued 
series of menaces, haVe at last invaded our territory and shed 
the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil.' " 

And again in his message of December 8, 184G, that '-we 
had ample cause of war against Mexico long before the break- 
ing out of hostilities, but even then we forebore to take redress 
into our own hands until Mexico herself became the aggressor, 
by invading our soil in hostile array, and shedding the blood of 
our citizens." 

And yet again in the message of December 7, 1847, that 
" the Mexican Government refused even to hear the terms of 
adjustment which he (our minister of peace) was authorized to 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 299 

propose, and finally, under wholly unjustifiable profcxts, iiivf)lvc(l 
the two countries in war, by invading the territory (.f tlie State 
of Texas, striking the firsit blow, and shedding the blood of our 
citizens on our own soil." 

And whereas this Houso is desirous to obtain a full knowl- 
edge of all the facts which go to establish whether the particu- 
lar spot on which tiie blood of our citizens was so shed, was or 
was not at that time our own soil. Therefore, 

Resolved, by the House of Representatives, That the President 
of the United States be respectfully requested to inform this 
House. 

1. Whether the spot on which the blood of our citizens was 
shed, as in his messages declared, was or was not within tlie 
Territory of Spain, at least after the treaty of 1810, until the 
Mexican revolution. 

2. Whether that spot is or is not within the territory which 
was wrested from Spain by the revolutionary Government of 
Mexico. 

3. Whether that spot is or is not within a settlement of 
people, which settlement has existed ever since long before the 
Texas revolution, and until its inhabitants fled before the ap- 
proach of the United States army. 

4. Whether that settlement is or is not isolated from any 
and all other settlements by the Gulf and the Rio Grande, on the 
south and west, and by wide, uninhabited regions, on the north 
and east. 

5. Whether the people of that settlement, or a majority of 
them, or any of them, have ever submitted themselves to the 
government or laws of Texas or of the United States, by con- 
sent or by compulsion, either by accepting ofiice, or voting at 
elections, or paying tax, or serving on juries, or having process 
served upon tliem, or in any other way. 

G. Whether the people of that settlement did or did not flee 
from the ap[jroach of the United States army, leaving un|iro- 
tected their homes and their growing crops, before the blood was 
shed, as ia the message stated ; and whether the first blood, so 



300 THE SPEECHES OP 

slied, was or was not shod within the enclosure of one of tbe 
people wlio had thus fled from it. 

7. Whether our citizens, whose blood was shed, as in his 
messages declared, were or were not, at that time, armed ofBcers 
and soldiers sent into that settlement by the military order of 
tliL! President, through the Secretary of War. 

8. Whether the military force of the United States was 
or was not so sent into that settlement after General Taylor had 
more than once intimated to the War Department that, in his 
ojiiiiion, no such movement was necessary to the defence or 
protection of Texas. 

soldiers' bounty. 

Mr. Lincoln spoke against the bill granting land to the 
soldiers of the Mexican war. We extract as follows : — 

If there was a general desire on the part of the House to 
pass the bill now, he should be glad to have it done, concurring, 
as he did generally, with the gentleman from Arkansas, (Mr. 
Johnson,) that the postponement might jeopard the safety of the 
proposition. If, however, a reference was to-be made, he 
wished to make a very few remarks in relation to the several 
subjects desired by gentlemen to be embraced in aniendments 
to the ninth section of the act of the last session of Congress. 
The first amendment declared by members of this House, had 
for its only oT-ject to give bounty lands to such persons as had 
served for a time as privates, but had never been discharged as 
such, because promoted to oJBBce. That subject, and no other, 
was embraced in this bill. There were some others who desired, 
while they were legislating on this subject, that they should 
also give bounty lands to the volunteers of the war of 1812. 
His friend frodi Maryland said there were no such men. He 
(Mr. L.) did not say there were many, but he was very confi- 
dent there Avere some. His friend from Kentucky, near him, 
(Mr. Gaines) told him he himself was one. 

There was still another proposition touching this matter, — 
that was, that persons entitled to bounty land should, by law, 



ABRAHAM IJXCOIA. 301 

be entitled to locate those lands in parcels, and not be rcfiuired 
to locate tbem in one body, as was provided by the exist in" 
law. 

Now, be liad carofally drawn up a bill cmliracing tliese 
three separate propositions, which he intended to propose as a 
sub>titute for all these bills in the House, or in Committee of 
the Whole on the State of the Union, at some suitable time. 
If there was a disposition on the part of the House to act at 
on«3 on this separate proposition, ho repeated that, with the 
gentleman from Arkansas, he should prefer it, lest they should 
lose all. But, if there was to be a reference, he desired to 
introduce his bill embracing the three propositions, thus enabling 
the Committee and the House to act at the same time, whether 
favorably or unfavorably, upon all. 

THE PUELIC LANDS. 

Mr. Lincoln moved to reconsider the vote by which the bill 
was passed. He stated to the House that he had made this 
motion for the purpose of obtaining an opportunity to say a few 
words in relation to a point raised in the course of the debute 
on this bill, which he would now proceed to make, if in order. 
The point in the case to which he referred, arose on the amend- 
ment that was submitted by the gentleman from Vermont, (^Ir. 
CoUamer,) in Committee of the Whole on the State of the 
Union, and which was afterwards renewed in the House, ia 
relation to the question whether the reserved sections, which, by 
some bills heretofore passed, by which an appropriation of land 
bad been made to Wisconsin, had been enhanced in value, 
should be reduced to the minimum price of the public lands. 
The question of the reduction in value of those sections was, to 
him, at this time, a matter very nearly of indifference. He was 
inclined to desire that Wisconsin should be obliged by having it 
reduced. But the gentleman from Indiana, (Mr. C. B. Smith.) 
the Chairman of the Committee on the Territories, yestcnlay 
associated that question with the general question, which lA 
now, to some extent, agitated in Congress, of making appropiiu- 



302 THE SPEECHES OF 

tions of alternate sections of land to aid the States in making 
internal improvements, and enhancing the prices of the section 
reserved, and the gentleman from Indiana tooli ground against 
that policy. He did not make any special argument in favor 
of Wisconsin ; but he took ground generally against the policy 
of giving alternate sections of land, and enhancing the price of 
the reserved sections. N£»w he (Mr. L.) did not, at this time, 
take the floor for the purpose of attempting to make an argu- 
ment on the general subject. He rose simply to protest against 
the doctrine which the gentleman from Indiana had avowed in 
the course of what he (3Ir. L.) could not but consider an 
unsound argument. 

It might however be true, for anything he knew, that the 
gentleman from Indiana might convince him that his argument 
was sound ; but he (Mr. L.) feared that gentleman would not 
be able to convince a majority in Congress that it was sound. 
It was true, the question appeared in a different aspect to per- 
sons in consequence of a difference in the point from which they 
looked at it. It did not look to persons residing east of the 
mountains as it did to .those who lived among the public lands. 
But, for his part, he would state that if Congress would make 
a donation of alternate sections of public lands for the purpo.se 
of internal improvement in his State, and forbid the reserved 
sections being sold at $1.25, he should be glad to see the 
appropriation made, though he should prefer it if the reserved 
sections were not enhanced in price. He repeated, he should 
be glad to have such appropriations made, even though the re- 
served sections should be enhanced in price. He did not wish 
to be understood as concurring in any intimation that they 
would refuse to receive such an appropriation of alternate sec- 
tions of land because a condition enhancing the price of the 
reserved sections should be attached thereto. He believed his 
position would now be underi^tood, if not, he feared he should 
not be able to make himself understood. 

But before he took his seat he would remark that the Senate, 
during the present session, hud passed a bill making apjjro- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 303 

priations of land on that principle for tlic benefit of the State 
in which ho resided, — the State of Illinois. The alternate 
sections were to be given for the purpose of constructing roads 
and the reserved sections were to be enhanced in value in con- 
sequence. When the bill came here for the action of this 
House, it had been received, and was now before the Commit- 
tee on Public Lands, — he desired much to see it passed as it 
was, if it could be put in a more favorable form for the State 
of Illinois. When it should be before this House, if any mem- 
ber from a section of the Union in which these lands did not 
lie, whose interest might be less than that which he felt, should 
propose a reduction of the price of the reserved sections to 
$1.25, he should be much obliged; but he did not think it 
would be well for those who came from the section of the 
Union in which the lands lay, to do so. He wished it, then, 
to be underfetood, that he did not join in the warfare against 
the principle which had engaged the minds of some members of 
Congress who were favorable to improvements in the western 
country. 

There was a good deal of force, he admitted, in what fell 
from the Chairman of the Committee on Territories. It might 
be that there was no precise justice in raising the price of the 
reserved sections to $2.50 per acre. It might be proper that 
the price should be enhanced to some extent, though not to 
double the usual price ; but he should be glad to have such 
an appropriation with the reserved sections at $2.50 ; he should 
be better pleased to have the price of those sections at some- 
thing less ; and he should be still better pleased to have them 
without any enhancement at all. 

There was one portion of the argument of the gentleman from 
Indiana, the Chairman of the Committee on Territories, (Mr. 
Smith,) which he wished to take occasion to say that he did 
not view as unsound. Ho alluded to the statement that the 
General Government was interested in these internal improve- 
ments being made, inasmuch as they increased the value of the 
lands that were unsold, and tbey enabled the Government to 



304 THE SPEECHES OP 

sell lands which could not be sold without thcni. Thuf^, then, 
the Government gained by internal improvements, as well as 
by the general good which the people derived from them, and 
it might be, theiefore, that the lands should not be sold for 
more than $1.50, instead of the price being doubled. He, 
however, merely mentioned this in passing, for he only rose to 
state, as the principle of giving these lands for the purposes 
which he had mentioned had been laid hold of and considered 
favorably, and as there were some gentlemen who had constitu- 
tional scruples about giving money for these purposes, who would 
not hcfcitate to give land, that he was not willing to have it 
understood that ho was one of those who made war against that 
principle. This was all he desired to say, and having accftm- 
plished the object with which he rose, ho withdrew his motion 
to reconsider. 
3Iay 11, 1818. 

SLAVERY IX TUB DISTPaCT OF COLUMBIA. 

In the debate on the slave-trade in the District of Ccilumliia, 
Mr Lincoln introduced an amendment to a bill before the House. 

Mr. L. read as follows : — 

Strike out all after the word " resolved," and insert the fol- 
lowing : — 

Tbat the Committee on the District of Columbia be in- 
structed to report a bill in substance as follows : 

Section 1. 13e it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States in Congress assembled. That no 
person not now within the District of Columbia, nor now owned 
by any person or persons now resident within it, nor hereafter 
born within it, shall ever be held in slavery within said Dis- 
trict. 

Sect. 2. That no person now within said District, or now 
owned by any per.son or j^ersons now resident within the same, or 
hereafter born within it, shall ever be held in slavery without the 
limits of said District : Proviiled, Tliat officers of the Government 
of the United States, being citizens of the skvcholding States, 



ABRAHAM LIXCOLX. . 305 

coming into said District on public business, and remaining only 
so long as may be reasonably necessary for that objocf, may lio 
attended into and out of said District, and while tlicre, by llie 
necessary servants of themselves and their fiimilics, w'thout 
their right to hold such servants in service being impaired. 

Sect. 3. That all children born of slave moihcrs within said 
District, on or after the 1st day of January, in the year of our 
Lord, 1850, shall be free ; but shall bo reasonably supported 
and educated by the respective owners of their mothers, or by 
their heirs or representatives, and shall serve reasonable service 
as apprentices to such owners, heirs, or representatives, until 

they respectively arrive at the age of years, when they 

shall be entirely free : And the municipal authorities of Wash- 
ington and Georgetown, within their respective jurisdictional lim- 
its, are hereby empowered and required to make all suitable 
and necessary provision for enforcing obedience to this section, 
on the part of both masters and apprentices. 

Sect. 4. That all persons now within this District, lawfully 
held as slaves, or now owned by any person or persons now resi- 
dent within said District, shall remain such at the will of their re- 
spective owners, their heirs, or legal representatives : Provided, 
that such owner, or his legal representatives, maj', at any time, re- 
ceive from the Treasury of the United States the full value of 
his or her slave, of the class in this section mentioned, upon 
which such slave shall be forthwitli and forever free : And 
provided further. That the President of the United States, the 
Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury, shall be 
a board for determining the value of such slaves as their owners 
desire to emancipate under this section, and whose duty it shall 
be to hold a session for the purpose on the first Monday of each 
calendar month, to receive all applications, and, on satisfactory 
evidence in each case, that the person presented for valuation is 
a slave, and of the class in the section mentioned, and is owned 
by the applicant, shall value such slave at his or her full ca.sh 
value, and give to the applicant an order on the treasury for the 
amount, and also to such slave a certificate of freedom. 
20 



306 THE SPEECHES OF 

Sect. 5. That the municipal authorities of Washington and 
Georgetown, within their respective jurisdictional limits, aro 
hereby empowered and required to provide active and efficient 
means to arrest and deliver up to their owners all fugitive slaves 
escaping into said District. * 

Sect. 6. That the elective officers within said District of Co- 
lumbia are hereby empowered and required to open polls at all 
the usual places of holding elections, on the first Monday of 
April next, and receive the vote of every free male white citi- 
zen above the age of twenty-one years, having resided within 
said District for the period of one year or more nest preceding 
the time of such voting for or against this act, to proceed in 
taking said votes in all respects not herein specified, as at elec- 
tions under the municipal laws, and with as little delay as pos- 
sible to transmit correct statements of the votes so cast to the 
President of the United States ; and it shall be the duty of the 
President to count such votes immediately, and if a majority of 
them be found to be for this act, to forthwith issue his proclama- 
tion giving notice of the fact ; and this act shall only be in full 
force and effect on and after the day of such proclamation. 

Sect. 7. That involuntary servitude for the punishment of 
crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall 
in no wise be prohibited by this act. 

Sect. 8. That for all purposes of this act, the jurisdictional 
limits of Washington are extended to all parts of the District 
of Columbia not included within the present limits of George- 
town. 

Mr. Lincoln then said, " that he was authorized to say that 
of about fifteen of the leading citizens of the District of Colum- 
bia to whom this proposition had been submitted, there was 
not one but approved of such a proposition. He did not 
■wish to be misunderstood. He did not know whether or not 
they would vote for his bill on the first Monday of April ; but 
he repeated that out of fifteen persons to whom it had been 
submitted, he had authority to say that every one of them de- 
sii-ed that some such propdsition as this should pass." 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 307 



RIGHTS OF NATURALIZED CITIZENS. 

The Illinois Staats-Anzeiger publishes a letter of Abraham 
Lincoln, written just a year since, on the Naturalization question 
and the Massachusetts araendraeut, as well as on the propriety 
of a fusion of the Republican with other parties. The follow- 
ing is the letter. 

Springfield, May 17, 1859. 
Dr. Theodore Canisids : — 

Dear Sir : I have received your letter, in which you ask, 
for yourself and other German citizens, whether I am for or 
against the constitutional provision, in relation to naturalized 
citizens, which has lately been adopted by Massachusetts ; and 
whether I am for or against a fusion of the Republican and 
other oppasition elements for the election campaign of 18G0. 

Massachusetts is a sovereign and independent State, and I 
have no title to advise or admonish her as to her course, what 
she shall do. But when any one, from that which she has 
done, seeks to draw a conclusion as to what I .shall do, I may, 
without being charged with presumption, speak my mind. I 
say, then, that, so far as I understand the Massachusetts 
amendment, I am against the adoption of the same, as well 
in Illinois as in all other places where I have the right to 
oppose it. Since I interpret the spirit of our institutions as 
tending to the elevation of man, I am opposed to everything 
which leads to his degradation. Since, as is pretty well known, 
I commiserate the oppressed condition of the negroes, I should 
be guilty of a remarkable inconsistency, were I to favor any 
measure, whose tendency is to abridge the existing rights of 



308 THE SPEECHES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

white men, whether born ia another country, or spcaliing 
another language than my own. 

As regards the question of a fusion of parties, I am for it, 
if it can be effected upon a llepublican basis ; upon no other 
terras am I in favor of it. A fusion upon any other terms 
would be as unwise as it would be unprincipled. Its effect 
would be to lose thereby the whole North, while the common 
enemy would certainly carry the entire South. The question 
in relation to men is a different one. There are good and 
patriotic men, and able statesmen in the South, whom I would 
cheerfully support, if they stood upon Republican ground ; but 
I am opposed to lowering the Republican standard by so much 
as a hair's-brcadth. 

I have written this in haste, but I believe that it substan- 
tially answers your questions. 

Respectfully yours, 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



LINCOLN S VOTE IN THE ILLINOIS SENATORIAL CANVASS OF 

1858. 
The following table shows the popular vote of Mr. Lincoln's 
supporters in the Legislature elected at the termination of the 
memorable struggle between Mr. Lincoln and Judge Douglas. 
The figures show how rascally must have been the apportion- 
ment by which Mr. Lincoln was defeated : — 

For Memhers of the Legislature. 
Lincoln, 125,275; Lecompton, 5,071 ; Douglas, 121,090. 

For Treasurer. 
Miller, 125,430; Dougherty, 5,071 ; Fondey, 121,009. 

For Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
Batcman, 124,556 ; Reynolds, 5,173; French, 122,413. 



SPEECH 



HON. HANNIBAL HAMLIN 



OF MAINE. 



SPEECH 



DEMOCRACY. 

The following manly speech was delivered in the U. S. 
Senate Chamber, June 12, 185G, when Senator Hamlin for- 
mally abandoned party affiliation with his old associates. Ilis 
democracy was of the rugged Silas Wright school, and for 
several years had the Maine Senator felt himself becoming iso- 
lated in the ranks of his old friends. It was a bold and manly 
speech. The occasion which called it forth was the platform 
adopted at Cincinnati by the National Democratic Convention, 
and the outrages perpetrated in Kansas, by the connivance 
and under the protection of, the administration of Mr. 
Pierce. All who read the following speech will agree that Sen- 
ator Hamlin did a manly act in a manly way. 

A PERSONAL MATTER. 

Mr. President, I arise for a purpose purely personal, such as 
I have never before risen for in the Senate. I desire to explain 
some matters personal to myself and to my own future course in 
public life. I ask the Senate to excuse me from further service 
as Chairman on Commerce. I do so because I feel that my rela- 
tions hereafter will be of such a character as to render it pro[)er 
that I should no longer hold that position. I owe this act to the 
dominant majority in the Senate. When I cease to harmonize 
with the majority, or tests are applied by that party with which 



312 SPEECH OF 

I have acterl to which I cannot submit, I feci, certainly, that I 
ought no longer to hold that respectable position. I propo!^c to 
^tate briefly the reasons tiiat have brought me to that conclusion. 

" SPEECH IS SILVERN, BUT SILENCE IS GOLDEN." 

During nine years of service in the Senate I have preferred 
rather to be a working than a talking member, and so I have 
been almost a silent one. On the subjects which have so much 
agitated the country, Senators know that I have rarely uttered a 
word. I love my country more than I love my party. I love 
my country above my love for any interest that can too deeply 
agitate or disturb its harmony. I saw, in all the exciting de- 
bates through which we have passed, no particular good that 
would result from my active intermingling in them. My heart 
has often been full, and the impulses of that heart have often 
been felt upon my lips, but I have repressed ihem there. 

WKOXG OF THE MiBKASKA ACT. 

Sir, I hold that tlie repeal of the Missouri Cmipromise was a 
gross moral and political wrong, unequalled in the annals of the 
legislation of this country, and hardly equalled in the annals of 
any other free country. Still, sir, with a desire to promote har- 
mony and concord and brotherly feeling, I was a quiet man 
under all the exciting debates which led to that fatal result. I 
believed it wrong then ; I can see that wrong lying broadcast all 
around us now. As a wrong I opposed that measure, — not in- 
deed by my voice, but with consistent and steady and uniform 
votes. I so resisted it in obedience to the dictates of my own 
judgment. I did it also cheerfully, in compliance with the in- 
structions of the legislature of 3Iaine, which were passed by a 
vote almost unanimous In the House of Representatives of 
Maine, consisting of 151 members, only six, I think, dissented; 
and in the Senate, consisting of 31 members, only one member 
non concurred. 



HANNIBAL HAMLIN. ^l: 



A WISE FORBEARANCE. 



But the Missouri restriction was abrogateil. The portentous 
evils that were predicted have followed, and are yet fdllowiiif, 
aloogin its train. It was done, sir, in violation of the pledges of 
that party with which I have always acted, and with wiiich I have 
always voted. It was done in violation of solemn plu'dgcs 
of the President of the United States, made in his inaugural 
address. Still, sir, I was disposed to suffer the wrong, until I 
should see that no evil results were flowing from it. We were 
told by almost every Senator who addressed us upon t^at occa- 
sion, that no evil results would follow ; that no practical differ- 
ence in the settlement of the country, and the character of the 
future State would take place, whether the act was done or not. 
I have waited calmly and patiently to see the fuKilinent of that 
prediction ; and I am grieved, sir, to say now, that they have at 
least been mistaken in their predictions and promises. They all 
have signally failed. 

TUE CAUSE OF DISTURBANCE. 

That Senators might have voted for that measure under the 
belief then expressed, and the predictions to which I have 
alluded, I can well understand. But how Senators can now 
defend that measure, amid all its evils, which are overwhelming 
the land, if not threatening it with a conflagration, is what I do 
not comprehend. The whole of the disturbed state of the 
country has its rise in, and is attributable to, that act alone, — 
nothing else. It lies at the foundation of all our misfortunes 
and commotions. There would have been no incursions by 
Missouri borderers into Kansas, either to establish slavery or 
control elections. There would have been no necessity cither 
for others to have gone there partially to aid in preserving the 
country in its then condition. All would have been peace there. 
Had it not been done, that repose and quiet which pervaded 
the public mind then, would hold it in tranquillity to-day. In- 
stead of startling events, we would have quiet and peace within 



314 SPEECH OF 

our borJors, and that fraternal feeling which ought to animate 
the citizens of every part of the Union toward those of all other 
sections. 

WHEKE DUTY LIES. 

Sir, the events that are taking place are indeed startling. 
They challenge the public mind, and appeal to the public judg- 
ment ; they thrill the public nerve as electricity imparts a 
tremulous motion to the telegraphic wire. It is a period when 
all good men should unite in applying the proper remedy to 
secure peace and harmony to the whole country. Is this to be 
done by any of us by remaining associated with those who have 
been instrumental in producing these results, and who now 
justify them ? I do not see my duty lying in that direction. 

I have, while temporarily acquiescing, stated here and at 
home, everywhere uniformly, that when the tests of those meas- 
ures were applied to me as one of party fidelity, I would 
sunder them as flax is sundered by the touch of fire. I do it 
now. 

A MORAL QUESTION. 

The occasion involves a question of moral duty ; and self- 
respect allows me no other line of duty but to follow the dictates 
of my own judgment and the impulses of my own heart. A 
just man may cheerfully submit to many enforced humiliations ; 
but a self-degraded man has ceased to be worthy to be deemed 
a man at all. 

THE ACTION AT CINCINNATI. 

Sir, what has the recent Democratic Convention at Cincinnati 
done ? It has indorsed the measure I have condemned, and 
has sanctioned its destructive and ruinous effects. It has done 
more, — vastly more. That principle of policy of territoiial 
sovereignty which once had, and I suppo.se now has, its advo- 
cates within these walls, is stricken down, and there is an abso- 
lute denial of it in the resolutions of the Convention, if I draw 



HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 315 

right conclusions, — a denial equally to Congress, and even to the 
people of the territories, of the right to settle tlie questidn of 
slavery therein. On the contrary, the Convention has actually 
incorporated into the platform of the Democratic party that 
doctrine which, only a few years ago, met nothing hut ridk-ule 
and contempt, here and elsewhere, namely, that tlio flag of the 
Federal Union, under the Constitution of tlie United States, 
carries slavery wherever it floats. If this baneful jjrinciple he 
true, then that national ode which inspires us always as on a 
battlefield, should be rewritten by Drake, and should road 
thus : — 

" Forever float that standard slieet, 

Where breatlies the foe that falls before as, 
With slavery's s-oil beneath our feet, 
And slaveky's banner streaming o'er us." 

WHERE IS TERRITOIUAL SOVEREIGNTY? 

Now, sir, what is the precise condition in which this matter is 
left by the Cinciunati Convention ? I do not design to trespass 
many moments on the Senate ; but allow mo to read and ofil-r 
a very few comments upon some portions of the Democratic 
platform. The first resolution that treats upon the subject is in 
these words. I read just so much of it as is applicable to my 
present remarks. 

" That Congress has no power, under the Constitution, to 
interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several 
States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of 
everything appertaining to their own affairs, not prohibited by 
the Constitution." 

I take it that this language, thus far, is language which meets 
a willing and ready response from every Senator here ; certainly 
it does from me. But, in the following resolution, I fiud these 
words : — 

" That the foregoing propositions cover, and were intended to 
embrace, the whole subject of slavery agitation in Congress." 

The first resolution which I read was adopted years ago in 



316 SPEECH OF 

Domneratic conventions. The .second resolution which I read 
was adopted in subsequent years, when a different state of 
things had arisen, and it hecaine necessary to apply ai. abstract 
proposition, relating to the States, to the territories. Hence the 
adop'tion of the language contained in the second resolution 
which I have read. 

THE POWER OF CONGRESS. 

Now, sir, I deny the position thus assumed by the Cincinnati 
Convention. In the language of the Senator from Kentucky, 
(Mr. Crittenden,) so ably and appropriately used on Tuesday 
last, I hold that the entire and unqualified sovereignty of the 
territories is in Congress. That is my judgment ; but this 
resolution brings the territories precisely within the same 
limitations which are applied to the States in the resolution 
which I first read. The two taken together, deny to Congress 
the power of legislation in the territories. 

DENIAL OF POWER. 

Follow on, and let us see what remains. Adopted as a part 
of the present platform, and as necessary to a new state of 
things, and to meet an emergency now existing, the Convention 
says : — 

"Jiesolved, That the American Democracy recognize and 
adopt the principles contained in the organic laws establishing 
the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, as embodying the only 
sound and safe solution of the slavery question, upon which the 
great national idea of the people of this whole country can 
repose in its determined conservatism of the Union, — Non- 
interference BY Congress with Slavery in States and 
Territories." 

Then follows the last resolution : — 

"Resolved, That we recognize the right of the people of all 
the territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, acting through 
the legally and fairly e.\pre.-sed will of a majority of actual 



HANNIBAL HAMLIN. .",17 

residents, and whenever the number of inhabitants justifies it, 
to form a constitution, with or without domestic slavery, and l)o 
admitted into the Union upon terms of perfect equably witli tiic 
other States." 

" ET TU BRUTE." 

Take all these resolutions togetlier, and the deduction whidi 
wo must necessarily draw from them is a denial to Conn-rc^s of 
any power whatever to legislate upon the subject of slavery. 
The last resolution denies to the people of the territory any 
power over the subject, save when they shall have a sufficient 
number to form a constitution, and become a State, and al>o 
denies that Congress has any power over the subject ; and .'^o 
the resolutions hold that power is at least in advance while the 
territory is in a territorial condition. Tliis is tlie only conclusion 
which you can draw from these resolutions. Alas for short- 
lived territorial sovereignty ! It came to its death in the hou.se 
of its friends ; it was buried by the same hands that gave it 
baptism ! 

THE PLATFORM THE NOMINEE. 

But, sir, I did not rise for the purpose of discussing these 
resolutions, but only to read them. I may, I probably shall, 
take some subsequent occasion when I shall endeavor to present 
to the Senate and the country a fair account of what is the true 
issue presented to the people for their consideration and 
decision. 

My object now is to show only that the Cincinnati Convention 
has indorsed and approved the repeal of the .Missouri Compro- 
mise, from which many evils have already flowed ; from which. 
I fear, more and worse evils must yet be anticipated. It woulil. 
of course, bo expected that the presidcntal nominee of that 
convention would accept, cordially and cheerfully, the platform 
prepared for him by his party friends. No person can objcrt 
to that. There is no oquivoc:»tion on his part about the matter. 
1 beg leave to read a tliort extract from a speech of that gentle- 



318 SPEECH OP HANNIBAL HAMLIN. 

man, made at his own home, within the last few clays. In 
reply to the Keystone Club, which paid him a visit there, Mr. 
Buchanan said : — 

" Gentlemen, two weeks since I should have made you a 
longer speech, but now I have been placed upon a platform of 
which I most heartily approve, and that can speak for me. 
Being the representative of the great Democratic party, and 
not sunply James Buchanan, I must square my conduct accord- 
ing to the platform of the party, and insert no new plank, nor 
take one from it." 

THE RIGHT STEP. 

These events leave me but one unpleasant duty, which is to 
declare here that I can maintain political association with no 
party that insists upon such doctrines ; that I can support no 
man for President who avows and recognizes them, and that the 
little of that power with which God has endowed me shall be 
employeil to battle manfully, firmly, and consistently for his 
defeat, demanded as it is by the highest interest of the country 
which owns all my allegiance. 



LETTERS OP ACCEPTANCE. 319 



LETTERS OF ACCEPTANCE OF MESSRS. LINCOLN AND UAMLIN. 

The following is the correspondence between the officers of the Kcpub- 
licun National Convention imd the candidates thereof for President and 
Vice-President. 

Chicago, Mat 18, 18C0. 
To the Honorable Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. 

Siu: The representatives of the Republican party of the Uritcd States, 
assembled in convention in Chicago, have, this day, by an unanimous vote, 
selected you as the Kepublican candidate for the office of Prcbideut of the 
United States to be supported at the next election; and the undersigned 
-were appointed a committee of the Convention to apprise you of this nomi- 
nation, and respectfully to request that you will accept it. A declaration of 
the principles and sentiments adopted by the Convention accompanies this 
communication. 

In the performance of this agreeable duty we take leave to add our con- 
fident assurances that the nomination of the Chicago Convention will be 
ratified by the suffrages of the people. 

We have the honor to be, with great respect and regard, your friends and 
fellow citizens. 

Signed by, GEO. ASHMUN, of Massachusetts, 

President of the Convention, 
And the Chairmen of the various State delegations. 



Speingfield, III., Mat 23, 1860. 
Hon. Geoege Ashmun, President of the Republican National Convention. 

Sir: I accept the nomination tendered me by the Convention, over 
•which you presided, and of which I am formally apprised in the letter of 
yourself and others, acting as a committee of that Convention, for that 
purpose. 

The declaration of principles and sentiments, which accompanies your 
letter, meets my approval; and it shall be my care not to violate, or disre- 
gard it, in any part. 

Imploring the assistance of Divine Providence; and with due regard to 
the views and feelings of all who were represented in the Convention; to 
the rights of all the States and territories, and people of the nation; to the 
inviolability of the Constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony, and 
prosperity of all, I am most happy to co -operate for the practical success 
of the principles declared by the Convention. 

Your obliged friend and fellow-ciiizen, 

AUPvAIIAM LINCOLN 



320 LETTERS OF ACCEPTANCE. 

A similar letter was sent to the nominee for the Vice-Presidency, to 
which the following is the reply. 

Washington, May 30, 18G0. 

Gentlemen: Your official communication of the 18th instant, informing 
me that the representatives of the Repuhlican party of the United States, 
assembled at Chicago, on that day, had, by a unanimous vote, selected me 
as their candidate for the office of Vice-President of the United States, 
has been received, together with the resolutions adopted by the Convention 
as its declaration of principles. 

Those resolutions enunciate clearly and forcibly the principles which 
unite us, and the objects proposed to be accomplished. They address 
themselves to all, and there is neither necessity nor propriety in ray enter- 
ing upon a discussion of any of them. They have the approval of mj- 
judgment, and in any action of mine will be faithfully and cordially sus- 
tained. 

I am profoundly grateful to those with whom it is my pride and pleasure 
politically to co-operate, for the nomination so unexpectedly conferred; 
and I desire to tender through you, to the members of the Convention, my 
sincere thanks for the confidence thus reposed in me. Should the nomination, 
which I now accept, be ratified by the people, and the duties devolve upon 
nic of presiding over the Senate of the United States, it v.ill be ray ear:. est 
endeavor faithfully to discharge them with a just regard to the rights cf all. 

It is to be observed, in connection with the doings of the Kepublicau C n- 
vention, that a paramount object with us, is, to preserve Ih'e uorrral con- 
dition of our territorial domain as homes for free men. The able advocate 
and defender of Republican principles, whom you have nominated for the 
highest place that can gratify the ambition of man, comes from a State 
which has been made what it is, by special action in that respect, of the 
wise and good men who founded our institutions. The rights of free labor 
have there been vindicated and maintain^. The thrift and enterprise 
which so distinguished Illinois, one of the most flourishing States of the 
glorious West, we would see secured to all the territories of the Union ; and 
restore peace and harmony to the whole country, by bringing back the 
government to what it was under the wise and patriotic men who created 
it. If the republicans shall succeed in that object, as they hope to, they 
will be held in grateful remembrance by the busy and teeming millions of 
future ages. 

I am, very truly, yours, H. HAMLIN. 

Hon. Geokgjs Ashmun, President of the Coirvention, and others of the 
Committee. 



W 65 



MAY 16 



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